Thermal Koala abundance mapping

The team at Symbio Wildlife Park is proud to be leading the first-ever large-scale thermal drone abundance mapping project across Southern Sydney and its surrounding regions. This innovative survey is helping to unlock new insights into the distribution of wildlife in the area and providing essential data for the long-term management of local species.

Using state-of-the-art DJI 30t thermal drones, equipped with powerful spotlights, our team conducts these surveys during the cooler months, operating through the night from 7pm until 3am. The surveys are designed to ensure maximum accuracy, with each site surveyed multiple times at different intervals throughout the night and across different days. This rigorous approach increases the likelihood of detecting wildlife across a variety of conditions, ensuring a comprehensive and reliable data set.

Thermal drone technology has proven to be a highly effective tool for large-scale wildlife surveys, and that’s why we’ve invested in developing our own dedicated Thermal Drone Survey team. By leveraging this advanced technology, we are able to cover vast areas quickly and efficiently, greatly enhancing our ability to monitor and assess species in remote and hard-to-reach environments.

Once a thermal signature is detected, our team verifies the species by spotlighting the area to confirm the identification with 100% accuracy. This combination of thermal imaging and spotlighting ensures precise species identification, enabling us to build a highly accurate map of the region’s wildlife populations.

To date, we have successfully surveyed close to 6,700 hectares across the Illawarra Escarpment, Plateau, and surrounds, marking the first time this technology has been used on such a large scale in this region. The results from these surveys are already revealing hidden patterns of wildlife distribution, and the data we’re collecting is crucial for shaping future species management plans.

Up until as recent as 2016, it was thought that Koalas had potentially become extinct from the Illawarra Escarpment and Plateau, so uncovering what could be deemed as unknown populations is extremely important, especially given Mt Kembla is commonly regarded as the scientific birthplace of Koala's with the first documented scientific discovery occurring here in 1803.

We are working to ensure that this innovative project will contribute significantly to the long-term conservation of local species. By establishing this baseline data, we are not only improving our understanding of the region’s wildlife but also laying the groundwork for future conservation efforts that will benefit both the animals and their habitats for generations to come.

This cutting-edge project is a testament to our commitment to advancing wildlife research and conservation through technology, and we are excited to see the continued impact it will have on protecting Southern Sydney’s unique biodiversity.