Popular Vote
Friends of the Koala are the lead organisation fighting for koalas in the Northern Rivers Region of New South Wales. We maintain a 24/7 Rescue Hotline, operate a regional Koala Care Centre in East Lismore, and rescue, treat and care for koalas before releasing them back into the wild. We also organise a merciful death for those that can’t be saved, propagate and distribute koala food trees for planting by landowners, work with local government to develop and implement Comprehensive Koala Plans of Management and provide advice to landowners on extending koala habitat.
However, many calls to our Rescue Hotline come through WIRES as they have a greater ‘visibility’ for calls about wildlife generally. These calls are all referred to us, but there’s a time lag. The earlier a sick or injured koala is reported and rescued the better the outcome for that koala, even where it is just a more humane death.
To address this issue, we submitted a project to the Live Ideas team at Southern Cross University and were delighted to have it accepted. We asked students to design a poster to increase community awareness and use of our Rescue Hotline, thereby improving outcomes for diseased and injured koalas in the Northern Rivers Region.
The brief to the students identified the aims of the poster as to:
- promote awareness of what to do when finding an injured koala;
- encourage increased and earlier reporting of injured and diseased koalas, thereby improving chances of survival for those koalas;
- provide the community with a better understanding of how to identify koalas needing to be rescued.
The target market for the poster is the community of the Northern Rivers Region of New South Wales. Essential content was ‘Put me in your Phone’ and our logo.
This gallery exhibits the work of the students in response to our brief, and you are invited to identify the 5 posters you believe meet the project’s aims most effectively.
