Koala qualms calmed by special squad
The New South Wales Roads and Freight Minister says a specialist team will ensure that a koala community is kept safe when a Pacific Highway addition is cut through their home.
Roads Minister Duncan Gay announced a suite of protection measures for the endangered marsupial this week, after concerns were raised due to the path of the Wardell section of the Pacific Highway upgrades.
“A team of experts will be brought together to develop a detailed koala management plan,” Mr Gay said.
The appointment “allows the next stages of early work to start, while the overall project is considered by the federal Department of the Environment,” he said.
“While the approved route is located in mostly cleared land we are committed to making sure the koala and other species can safely cross under or over the new highway... an important learning from previous experience is that koalas can and do maintain home ranges right to the edge of the highway.”
Koala protection measures will include “fully fencing nearly 16 kilometres of both sides of the new highway, the construction of a land-bridge, increasing the number of fauna crossings suitable for koalas” and “planting some 130 hectares of koala food trees on RMS owned land.”
The Roads and Freight Minister has told local Nationals MP Don Page that there will be “strict conditions governing appropriate management of threatened species, including koalas.”
He said other routes would have gone deeper into koala territory.
“While a shorter route, the southern section cuts into Broadwater National Park, which has also been identified as having an important koala population,” Gay said.
Friends of the Koala president Lorraine Vass has told NSW social issues press Echonet that the announcement of the expert koala team does add some extra measures, but the chance of long-term decline in koala numbers has not been factored.
“There are no mitigation measures while the road is being built,” she said.
“During the construction of [the] section at St Helena in Ewingsdale, RMS (Road Maritime Services) records only roadkill as impacting koala populations.
“However, we count disease and other factors. Our experience from this is that there will be a spike of mortality rates.
“Other places where upgrades have been done, for example at the Yelgun to Chinderah upgrade in the early 2000s, we were hearing that the numbers of koalas dropped dramatically.
“Population decline takes time; you can construct underpasses etc but there’s no guarantees on maintaining the populations.”