00:01Using the latest tech to search for an endangered icon.
00:07When we're flying at night everything is dark and we'll see a thermal signature of any animal or bird in the tree
00:15and it's like a light bulb in the tree.
00:20Drone operators are scouring bushland around Logan to find out just how many koalas call the region home.
00:27Just the sheer area that they can cover. The clarity, GPS location of everything you spot.
00:34You get video in high definition. So being able to use that data post is far more accurate.
00:41Similar studies have taken place across the Gold Coast and in North Queensland.
00:46If we want to protect the habitat that koalas live in now and into the future
00:50we have to understand where they are and how they move around our city.
00:54While the Logan Council says the drone surveys will help protect koalas
00:59conservationists have warned more needs to be done by all levels of government
01:04to help save habitat from overdevelopment.
01:07If you're putting roads through koala habitat you see more car strikes.
01:10If you're building houses in there you get more dog attacks
01:13and ultimately also the more koalas are compressed you see higher stress in the population
01:18and that results in less resilience and greater disease.
01:21Environmentalists believe the key to saving the marsupial is building up rather than out.
01:27If we keep doing these giant new PDA developments in the last vestiges of remnant forests in
01:33South-Eat Queensland we are signing a death warrant for the koala.
01:36For now the count to find how many are left continues.
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