‘Infertility, blindness, and suffering’: Rampant chlamydia threatens Northern Rivers koalas

Northern NSW residents got the jab to tackle Covid, now the push is on for local koalas to be vaccinated against a killer disease. The stakes are high - and that’s the problem.

Up to 100 Northern Rivers koalas could be vaccinated against chlamydia, but the process is so expensive and fraught with paperwork that the population faces extinction.

Dr Jodie Wakeman, veterinarian at Friends of the Koala, can see up to 150 koalas come through her clinic every year.

She says 60 per cent of those have some kind of chlamydial disease - and by the time the koalas are rescued, the disease is nearly impossible to treat effectively.

Dr Wakeman says 80 per cent of the chlamydia-riddled koalas need to be euthanised.

“The disease is just rampant and it doesn’t just kill them, it causes infertility, blindness, and suffering,” she said.

Venus and Cupid at Friends of the Koala Hospital in Lismore. Picture: Brad Mustow/Friends of the Koala

“Chlamydia will wipe them out if we can’t control it. It’s the number one disease killer of koalas in this region.

“It makes a huge difference if we can prevent it.”

The only licensed koala rescue, rehabilitation and release sanctuary in the Northern Rivers, Friends of the Koala volunteers are on the front line in the fight to save the animals from extinction.

Chlamydial vaccinations for koalas are a science in progress, and can happen only through available research projects which are “extremely expensive”, Dr Wakeman said.

To get a widespread vaccination project off the ground, Friends of the Koala needs to secure a research grant.

Friends of the Koalas resident male koala Triumph, recently received the world's first koala prothesis.

But these grants are hyper competitive, and the Friends has previously failed to secure funding for vaccination projects.

The project could cost around $150,000 per year, as the vaccines need to be developed from scratch - although that figure is just an estimate.

Friends has offered to stump up some funding to the tune of about $95,000 – or $30,000 per year for three years – if the government will cover the shortfall.

Even if Friends is successful in securing funding, it will be over a year before Northern Rivers koalas will receive vaccinations from the South Lismore sanctuary.

Koala habitat clearing is the most immediate threat to the endangered species, Dr Wakeman said, but the “next big step” is slowing the spread of chlamydia within the Northern Rivers koala population.

“If we keep wiping out all their habitat, they’re all going to die anyway,” she said.

“But if we managed to successfully stop that (land clearing) and perhaps turn it in the opposite direction, then that needs to happen in conjunction with chlamydia control.”