S8 Ep188: Surprising Koala Population Explosion in New South Wales: Colleague Jeremy Zakis reports a surprising population explosion of koalas in New South Wales, rising to 274,000 due to lush vegetation and fewer fires, explaining that advanced surveys using drone

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Surprising Koala Population Explosion in New South Wales: Colleague Jeremy Zakis reports a surprising population explosion of koalas in New South Wales, rising to 274,000 due to lush vegetation and fewer fires, explaining that advanced surveys using drones and acoustics confirmed these numbers and describing the surprisingly loud, guttural growls these animals make during mating season.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Batson in New England, where it's cold,
0:06.8	very cold. Jeremy Zackis in New South Wales, where it's warm and thunderstormy and beautiful lightning,
0:14.1	and tropical mixed with the Indian Ocean breeze is coming in. However, we're concerned with those spectacular lightning strikes
0:23.7	that Jeremy can see from his suburbs and what happens when they hit a eucalyptus tree, which
0:31.0	remember is a oil-soaked rag of oils. And those oils both attract and condemn the creatures that live in the branches
0:41.1	of the of the eucalyptus tree, koala. Now, I've studied koala ever since I've been speaking with
0:49.6	Jeremy regularly and they're easy to be sympathetic with. They're not bears. They're special to Australia.
0:58.7	They've been there for maybe 25, maybe 38,000 years. So they do okay. But fires are their
1:05.6	enemies. And the fires of these last years were presumed to have reduced their numbers along with
1:12.1	a disease that was hurting them badly having to do with sexual encounters, sexual intercourse
1:24.0	diseases, STD. And the numbers were shrinking, I was told, but a sudden
1:31.0	reversal of fortune. Jeremy, what's happened? Well, John, great news for the koala population.
1:37.6	A survey that's been carried out over the last 12 months here in the greater Sydney region and
1:42.2	greater New South Wales region, has found that the
1:45.0	koala population has not only grown, it has truly exploded many, many folds.
1:50.3	So what we've actually seen is that from 2022, when we counted really only around about
1:55.2	15,000 to 30,000 koalas really around the Greater Sydney area and just the regional parts outside of
2:01.4	Sydney here in New South Wales, we are now seeing up to 274,000 koalas and now inhabiting the same
2:09.2	region in the space of only just two to three years. And honestly, John, this survey, while
2:14.3	there is some discussion about whether or not the results are accurate,
2:17.8	it was done very, very scientifically. The way they actually counted the quailas this time was
2:22.4	basically from doing surveys on the ground where effectively the conservationists and the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.