• Koalas are at risk of extinction: they could disappear by 2050 if action is not taken.
• Biobanks will save money and make conservation more efficient.

Wildlife conservation is a complex and costly undertaking. In Australia, where infrastructure and expertise are already at the cutting edge, finding ways to improve and reduce management costs becomes very difficult. However, in a recent article published in the journal Animals, a group of researchers from the University of Newcastle has found a possible solution: biobanks and assisted reproduction could become the future of koala conservation, drawing on the modern techniques used in human assisted conception. This approach would greatly benefit captive breeding programmes by avoiding the problem of inbreeding (the mating of closely related individuals), while also reducing costs.

Genetic banks to save koalas

The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is at serious risk of extinction and, if action is not taken in time, could even disappear by 2050. Habitat fragmentation, disease, road accidents and wildfires are just some of the threats it faces. To illustrate the gravity of the situation: during 2019–2020, when Australia was ravaged by flames, an estimated 64,000 koalas were killed.

"Currently, we don't have tools capable of storing genetic material useful for reproduction, such as sperm," said Ryan Witt, conservation scientist and co-author of the study. "So, we don't have an 'insurance policy' against natural disasters, like the 2019–2020 fires, which could wipe out a large number of animals at once. If the koala population were to die out in events of this kind, there is no way to bring them back or to preserve their genetics." Biobanking could resolve this problem by freezing and storing koala reproductive cells. Frozen sperm could then be reused to fertilise females in assisted reproduction programmes.

Koalas face many challenges for survival

As mentioned, this programme is certainly beneficial for the conservation of the species, as it avoids the risk of koala genes being lost forever. But why is it also so advantageous from an economic standpoint? The economic models presented in the study showed savings that reduced overall koala captive-breeding costs by five to twelve times.

One of the main strategies employed to prevent inbreeding is to keep as many koalas as possible, meaning very large koala colonies, and consequently more money is required to maintain such a high number of individuals. Although captive breeding is a powerful tool for koala conservation, low genetic diversity could lead to reproductive dysfunction and infertility, rendering those efforts futile. On top of this, other problems must be added, such as low disease resistance and a poor ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Having access to genetic material such as frozen sperm, combined with the already well-established assisted reproduction techniques developed for humans, could significantly reduce these inbreeding problems and allow captive breeding programmes to house much smaller colonies, while still meeting optimal genetic diversity targets.

A major investment

This research was published just days after the Australian Department of the Environment announced its intention to commit as much as 200 million dollars to koala conservation, a remarkable sum aimed at helping to double the population of this iconic animal. The funds will be directed towards restoring the species' habitat, supporting local communities and recovery programmes, including translocation and rehabilitation. Since Australia has the highest species extinction rate in the world, this policy move is crucial for any chance of safeguarding the koala. We will have to wait and see whether it works.