Gourmet gum saplings grown for koalas to find a delicious new home

The first 100 saplings grown as part of a unique research project looking at the nutritional quality of the gum leaves that koalas eat, have been planted out on Redlands Coast.

The long-term project, known as Gourmet Gum Leaves, is a collaboration between Redland City Council and the Australian National University (ANU). It aims to improve landscape nutritional quality which will assist in koala conservation and management.

Council’s General Manager Community and Customer Services, Louise Rusan, said koalas were one of the most iconic and beloved animals in Australia and their protection was a top priority for Council.

“Last year, research scientists working for ANU collected seeds from koala food trees on Redlands Coast and nearby areas in south-east Queensland,” she said.

“The trees selected for seed collection were particularly tasty to koalas due to a combination of relatively high protein and low herbivore deterrent toxins.”

The seeds were propagated at Redlands IndigiScapes Native Community Nursery at Capalaba.

Now that they have grown into seedlings, they will be planted out in line with a targeted revegetation strategy.

The first 100 Gourmet Gum trees were planted alongside 100 “control” trees for scientific comparison, during a National Tree Day community event at Hilliards Park Creek Corridor, Wellington Point, in late July this year.

Those 200 saplings and another 1700 habitat trees were planted by the community on the day to expand the area’s habitat for local wildlife. Researchers tagged the eucalyptus species so they can monitor their growth at the corridor.

They plan to plant out many more gourmet gum trees in the future as part of this ground-breaking, applied conservation research.

According to two of the researchers – ANU College of Science Research Fellow Kara Youngentob and Queensland ecologist Dr Christina Zdenek – one of the most important factors influencing the distribution and numbers of koalas in any area is the quality of their food trees.

A lot of what determines good food for koalas is encoded in a tree’s genes and can be passed from parent tree to offspring.

The Gourmet Gum Leaves project ultimately intends to increase the local koala population by providing the best quality food from intentionally selected, high nutritional quality koala food trees.

Creating healthier habitats for koalas results in more robust populations that are more likely to produce healthy young.

Some of the seeds collected by ANU came from trees at Birkdale Community Precinct, which has a small but growing koala population.

The seedlings grown from these Gourmet Gum trees will be planted back on the precinct in the future. About two-thirds of the 62-hectare Birkdale Community Precinct site is protected conservation area.