Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555:body:0:p55
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00555
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 176511–179439

a variety of reasons (Hisock 2008). This continues in parts of Australia. As Costello (2019, pg 23) notes 'Budabe belong to waybar jagun. Koalas belong to fire Country' and the Koala needs appropriate cultural and land management practices to flourish. The empowering of Indigenous leadership and participation in cultural burning and land management in eastern Australia (Robinson et al. 2021) will require supporting Indigenous land managers and respecting knowledge as part of Koala habitat recovery (Actions 1l, 1m, 2a, 2b, 2d; principles, section 10).
Koalas living in peri-urban environments face death and trauma from car strikes and dog attacks, Brisbane, Qld. Image: © C. Runge.

19.4 Other

Mortality from dogs and vehicles
Direct mortality and trauma caused from dog attack and vehicle strike is a major, though localised, effect of urbanisation, especially in the rapidly expanding urban and peri-urban areas where high-density Koala populations coexist with people (Beyer et al. 2018; Dique et al. 2003a; Lunney et al. 2002). Juvenile males in particular are susceptible to vehicle strike (Canfield 1991; Dexter et al. 2018; Dique et al. 2003a). Mortality from dogs and vehicles is not solely restricted to urban areas, as wild dogs and major highways also occur in relatively intact landscapes (Beyer et al. 2018). Trauma from vehicle strike and dogs account for a high proportion of veterinary clinic admissions (Beyer et al. 2018; Gonzalez-Astudillo et al. 2019).
Although mortality and trauma to Koalas from vehicles and dogs is widespread, the relative proportion of attribution to mortality and impact on local Koala populations (often along with disease) vary significantly depending on local landscape context (e.g. Beyer et al. 2018; Gonzalez-Astudillo et al. 2019; Lunney et al. 2002; Rhodes et al. 2006) and is influenced by road density and the volume of vehicle traffic (Dique et al. 2003a; McAlpine et al. 2006a and b; Rhodes et al. 2006; Ashman et al. 2020). Where populations are small and isolated, mortality from vehicles and dogs may result in population sinks (Dias 1996) where populations are essentially unviable and can only be retained through immigration from nearby source populations, rather than through intrinsic growth (e.g. Iluka population, New South Wales, Lunney et al. 2007). Dogs are implicated in exacerbating population declines in fire-affected fragmented landscapes (Lunney et al. 2007).
Actions addressing the impacts on Koalas from dogs and vehicles reside mainly with local government authorities (e.g. compliance and traffic control planning; McAlpine et al. 2007), and interventions have shown to be effective in local population recovery (Beyer et al. 2018). Further research into novel approaches to human social behaviour on dog-Koala interactions (Rundle-Thiel et al. 2019) and Koala aversion training for dogs (David et al. 2019) may also provide some new tools for