GUNNEDAH'S koala population and the installation of drinking stations around the shire has been reported in The Daily Express, a daily national middle-market tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom.
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Local resident Shirley Wood received the newspaper clipping from a friend in Belfast who had spotted the article last month.
Born and bred in Narrabri, Michael Simcoe, was surprised to see Gunnedah's koalas mentioned so far away from Australia and quickly posted the article off to his friend in Gunnedah.
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The article by Stephen Breech, quotes Sydney University professor, Dr Valentina Mella, writing in the journal PLOS One, where she made the observation that "drinking stations could help kolas and might help mitigate the effects of climate change".
The article said Dr Mella and her team had recorded koala visits to water stations in Gunnedah, NSW, where in 2009 a heat wave had killed one in four of the local koala population.
They found the number of trips and times spent drinking had doubled in summer "as thirsty koalas flocked to get a drink".
Dr Mella wrote that koalas are "particularly vulnerable" to climate change because higher levels of CO2 gas makes the leaves they eat more toxic.
The article said the koalas could be "saved from extinction" by this new research which had overturned the popular view that koalas get all the water they need from eucalyptus leaves.
Shirley Wood became friends with Michael Simcoe when she was running a corner shop in Narrabri "a few decades ago". Shirley became a mother figure to the young man and they have stayed in close contact all these years.
Now living in Belfast with his Irish wife Monica, Michael writes regularly and made a special trip to Gunnedah with his wife to introduce her to Shirley.
