Koalas only spend 10 minutes on the ground each day, but two-thirds of them die in those 10 minutes.

Koalas are an iconic Australian animal and are listed as endangered, with populations declining rapidly due to habitat loss, fragmentation and disease. A shocking new study reveals that koalas spend just 1% of their day on the ground, yet this brief time is associated with two-thirds of their deaths.

Koalas spend only 1% of their life on the ground – but it's killing them | EurekAlert!
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1089831

Koalas spend only 1% of their lives on the ground—but it's killing them
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-koalas-ground.html

Koalas spend just 10 minutes a day risking their lives on the ground, tracking suggests - ABC News
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-07-10/most-koala-deaths-happen-ground-habitat-destruction/105507980

The study was led by Gabriella Sparks, a PhD student at the University of Queensland in Australia, who said she was concerned that widespread land clearing was forcing koalas to move above ground, and wanted to 'gain a better understanding of how koalas behave on the ground.'

Previous research has lacked basic information on how often koalas descend from trees, how long, how far and how fast they travel, and what influences their behavior, posing a major challenge to developing conservation strategies.

Sparks and his team fitted 10 wild koalas with special collars equipped with GPS loggers and six-axis accelerometers in farmland around Pittsworth, Queensland. Their locations were recorded every five minutes, and every five seconds while they were moving on the ground. The accelerometers allowed for detailed identification of walking, climbing, and sitting behaviors, allowing for precise classification of both arboreal and ground-based behavioral patterns.

The study confirmed that koalas spend most of their day sleeping and feeding in trees, but surprisingly, they only come down to the ground two or three times a night, for an average of about 10 minutes in total, which is less than 1% of their day.

'Koalas on the ground also did not move in a hurry, spending roughly the same amount of time walking as they did sitting or standing. They only took their feet off the ground and jumped or ran for about 7% of their time on the ground, which is thought to be a way to carefully assess their surroundings or reduce energy costs. Furthermore, behavioral differences were observed depending on the habitat, with koalas living along roads or in wooded areas tending to spend more time on the ground than those living in densely wooded areas.'

In particular, this study revealed a significant disparity between the amount of time spent on the ground and the risk of death. Although koalas spend an average of just 10 minutes per day on the ground, less than 1% of their lifetime, approximately 66% of recorded koala deaths occurred during this short time. The main causes of death were attacks by dogs and collisions with cars, highlighting how dangerous ground travel is for koalas, whose basic lifespan is arboreal.

Sparks is investigating what types of trees and habitats encourage koalas to stay in trees for longer, and the results are expected to be useful for landscape design and management to reduce ground migration. Professor Matthew Crowther, a zoologist at the University of Sydney, said this research contributes to habitat restoration, and that it is important to develop landscapes that do not require koalas to stay on the ground for long periods of time.