More on Koalas, it is interesting to see peoples observations on their activity.  I notice some say they are very active during the day.  I have seen 100s of Koalas in the Pilliga forest and Gunnedah area over the years, some pertinant observations are:

1.  Only ever heard Koalas calling twice during the day.  After locating the individual, on both occasions I had unintentionally interrupted a Koala mating ritual.  The male bellows quite often, with the female also calling, (softer call much like a kid goat).

2.  Seen Koalas quite a lot on the ground during the day, in the early morning or late afternoon.  They seem to be moving in the morning to find suitable daytime roosting perches and in the afternoon back to preferred feeding areas.

3. This behaviour I found much more noticable on hot days when Koalas would go to extraordinary lengths to try and stay cool during the day, from taking low perches in Cypress Trees (younger trees with dense canopy) and also moving into large tree hollows, including located at the base of the tree.

4. Last year I noticed one male had taken refuge in a patch of Yellow Box trees within a crevice at the bottom of one of the trees.  It was clearly in distress, and made me think how important maintaining water balance is for a koala.  This problem has been exacerbated over the years with a long drought, a decreased water availability in the forage and need to move longer distances just to find suitable feed and roosting trees.

5. Males undertake territorial behaviour only at night in the PIlliga, where they move in large circles, calling intermittently throughout the night.

TO me, I think that using playbacks is only suitable at night, when the males are most likley to respond. During the day they are trying to do other things, such as sleeping, moving to and from favoured areas and mating.  Using playbacks during the day is more likely to cause the animals stress and interrupt some of their essential behavioural patterns.

An interesting topic !!  When I was doing biodiversity audits for DIPNR at Gunnedah research centre (1998-2004), quite a healthy population of Koalas were observed at all times, and oddly enough, more were seen in daylight hours than on night monitoring survey periods! To avoid disturbance with long spotlight times, I used an infra-red nightscope with good outcomes as far as koala observations were concerned.

At the onset of drought conditions during 1999-2000 many koalas used Cypress pine as shelter because Eucalypts were shedding leaves and did not provide as much daylight filtering. Most of these were females carrying young and quite active during daylight. We found this quite surprising, considering the Koalas are reputed to go into sleep and/or doze mode for up to 18 hours in a 24 hour period. The koalas we observed moved constantly into Cypress pine (juvenile) thickets during daylight and moved back,uphill, into Eucalypt woodlands at dusk. I think you could possibly use playback during daylight in some areas of Koala home ranges in NSW.

Regards ,Phil Burrell

Over looking the Animal Ethic querstion, which I dont really believe is an issue (Whats the difference between "waking " a Koala durign the day compared to implying theres another male in the territory and intimidating / causing a response from a residnet Koala at night - if you look at Jasons arguement, both would require Koalas to expel energy), it seems there is some scope to do koala call playbacks during the day. Maybe the ECA should sponsor a short term 3rd year Uni project on this topic. Would be interesting to get some quantative data. Could also offer it to say a Uni up north and one down south and compare the results.

Yes - Koalas are active during the day, tho my observations suggest more activity during the breeding season, and at this time its possible you may get some response to Koala call playback as sometimes they do call during the day, tho I've not had the gear in the car when such an event has happened. Call playback out of season is not a reliable way to detect Koalas (vocal responses in my experience seem less likely, and aggressive responses nil), and would certainly be less so diurnally at this time I would think.

My personal theory is the same as for why most frogs call nocturnally. Apart from exposing one-self to a potential predator (eg a wedgetailed eagle), noise carries a lot further at night. Its also energy consuming, and given its ususally Spring when such actvity peaks, perhaps its an evergy efficiency thing too.

Koala movements are actually quite complex, tho again it may be area (eg extent of habitat fragementation) and I think even colony dependant. I have been part of a monitoring program (long term) assisting a major landholder in the Port Macquarie area where some very interesting activity and movement has been documented. The area is undulating with generally Blackbutt-Grey Gum and Tallowwood DSF on the hills (on generally fertile soil) grading down to Swamp Mahogany-BL Paperbark SF. Depending on the time of the year, movements over 24hrs can be very interesting. In Summer, you can find the aggregate in the swamp forest during the day, then pick them up from about 10-11pm at night in the DSF. By dawn, you can sometimes catch the whole aggregate progressively begin moving downslope to the SF again - bit like stop motion photography sometimes, and others like commandos approaching the enemy line.  Other times of the year, you find them at all in the swamp forest. These sort of complexities make devisal of a KPoM very challenging, and reinforces how misunderstood Koala ecology in regard to our understanding of habitat use is ie the same rules dont apply in all areas.

I think you may also need to justify using playback calls during the day with the Animal Ethics Committee (AEC). If Koalas spend most of the day sleeping, then I think the AEC would need to be convinced that diurnal call playbacks don't significantly disrupt the normal sleeping patterns of Koalas and thus physiologically stress them.

Having said that, I have seen a few Koalas active during the day. One example that immediately comes to mind goes back to 1996 when I was staying on Phillip Island in Victoria. A Koala strolled casually through the back garden of the holiday cottage that I was staying in, climbed a fence and disapeared into the distance in the early part of the afternoon.

You would have to wake them up first! The ones I have seen are pretty inactive during the day and I would guess less likely to respond. Has anyone done some experimental work?

Looking at the daily cycle of a Koala, why dont we do call playbacks for this species during daytime hours? I acknowledge taht thie main activity period is just after dusk, but note they are also active during the daytime. Wouldnt it also be possible to do call playbacks for Koalas during the day light hours??