Koala Habitat and Population Assessment, Ballina Shire

Biolink was engaged by Ballina Shire Council to undertake a Koala Habitat and Population Assessment for the entire LGA, an area of approximately 50,000ha. Completed in the latter half of 2013, key outcomes from this study included identification of a historically significant koala population inhabiting the Blackwall Ranges and associated lowland habitat areas around Meerschaum Vale, Wardell and Bagotville. The importance of this population is such that it warrants recognition as an 'important population' for for purposes of the Commonwealth Government's EPBC Act 1999 while there is some evidence that it may also have been the ancestral source population for Lismore and the Byron Coast. Sadly, the viability of this important population is now threatened by Stage 10 of the proposed Pacific Highway upgrade.