Supporter story: Jarvis Ford

When Koala Life Chairman Professor Chris Daniels reached out to Ric and Jo Collins, and Jarvis Ford for the supply of two transport vehicles for the Strzelecki koala translocation, the natural answer from them was yes.

A delicate operation followed, with COVID restrictions meaning the vehicles were used to facilitate the movement of koalas and gear back and forth across state lines. Koala Life is incredibly thankful for the generosity of Mark Lambert and his wonderful team at Jarvis Ford. The vehicles successfully transported four koalas from country Victoria to South Australia, each within a strict twenty-four hour time frame to reduce stress on the koalas.

The Strzelecki koalas are important in the Australian koala story as they are comparatively unrelated to South Australian animals and, until this project, were unrepresented in captive populations. Preliminary work has also identified they have a very low, or possibly zero incidence of a genetically linked kidney disease, oxalate nephrosis. This disease affects 60% of the South Australian population. Breeding disease free and out-bred koalas will lead to koalas much better suited to the future challenges of global warming and other environmental stresses.

A very big thank you to Jarvis Ford for their support on this project.

A full list of our partners for the Strzelecki translocation can be viewed here.