A New Collaboration

On their recent field trip, Bill and Sean introduced 3 collaborators to St Bees Island - and to the koala population that lives there. Aside from trying to obtain recordings of koala bellowing, talking science with these researchers was one of the main aims of the trip.

St Bees Island. Photo by Malcolm Ludgate

Who were they?

Scientists from the San Diego Zoo
Two of the researchers were from the San Diego Zoo, which is heavily involved in koala research. The zoo itself has a population of captive koalas, and scientists are trying to use their captive animals to learn as much as they can about koalas as a whole. I mean, koalas aren't exactly easy to study in the wild!

But it struck the researchers how different behaviour was between the zoo koalas and the wild koalas on St Bees Island - which begs the question ... can we make generalisations about animal behaviour from captive populations? This is a big question, relevant to a whole range of animals that are difficult to study in their native environments.

Acoustics scientist
The other collaborator was a scientist from the UK (and now the US) who studies acoustics. Dr. Ben Charlton is an expert on animal communication - and his work on deer and pandas (among other things) has set him up as a great collaborator for the Koala Ecology Group. We really want to know what koalas are saying to each other out there in the wild - and Ben is just the guy to help figure that out.

We look forward to his next trip out to work with us, and hopefully collect more data on koala calling!

Collaboration is so important in science - because the reality is that no one can be an expert in everything. So by working with people who are experts (in whatever you're interested in learning), it makes research easier and more productive!

Written by Amanda Niehaus, PhD, on behalf of the Koala Ecology Group