Heat-seeking drones have revealed there is a breeding population of koalas living in south-west Lake Macquarie.
Lake Macquarie City Council has commissioned Nightvision Ecology, a Hunter-based company, to conduct evening surveys of more than 600 hectares of bushland around Awaba, Toronto, and Dora Creek.
Another two ecological contractors are conducting surveys around Mandalong and Wyee.
The south-west corner of Lake Macquarie is earmarked for major residential and commercial development in the coming decades.
More than 50,000 people are expected to live in the region by 2046.
However, the area is also home to crucial koala habitat.
Last month, the council revealed that 2000 koalas had been detected in the north-western corner of the local government area around Mount Sugarloaf, Teralba, Killingworth and West Wallsend.
While much of those surveys in the north-west were conducted by sniffer dogs, thermal-imaging drones are considered a better method in the south-west on public land and private properties that have permission.
"We know Toronto, Awaba, and other areas in the city's south-west, also hold significant numbers of food and habitat trees for koalas, but until now we haven't had any solid data pointing to the presence of koalas or a persistent population in those areas," the council's manager of environmental systems, Daniel Woods, said.
The large quadcopter drones have thermal imaging cameras, spotlights and a zoom lens to capture details from a distance.
The drones are launched in the evening as the bush cools and the heat of the resident fauna becomes more prominent.
Mr Woods said the drones had revealed six koalas, as well as gliders, a threatened owl species and a pair of threatened glossy black cockatoos.
"Most promising of all was the fact that two of those koalas were a mother and joey, which suggests these aren't animals just passing through - it's an established, breeding population," Mr Woods said.
This method of koala and other wildlife detection has been previously used by other Hunter council areas.
In 2023 the Hunter's largest koala population in Port Stephens bushland was surveyed by the NSW Primary Industries and University of Newcastle researchers.
It was part of the $193.3 million state government package aimed at doubling the number of koalas in NSW by 2050 following the devastating Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20.
