During Australia's 2019–2020 "Black Summer" bushfires, specially trained detection dogs helped rescuers find koalas that had survived the flames. Two of them became famous: Taylor, an English springer spaniel working with a private detector-dog trainer, and Bear, a koala detection dog with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the University of the Sunshine Coast. Bear alone helped locate more than 100 koalas in burnt-out bushland.
Koalas are hard to spot at the best of times: grey fur, high branches and long hours of sitting still. After a fire, with smoke, ash and scorched trees everywhere, finding the survivors quickly can decide whether an injured or starving animal gets care in time. That is where a dog's nose comes in.
How bad were the Black Summer fires?
The 2019–2020 fire season ran from mid-2019 to March 2020 and burned roughly 24 million hectares across Australia, an area about the size of the United Kingdom. Thirty-three people died directly in the fires, and hundreds more deaths were later linked to the smoke.
The figure that went around the world in January 2020 came from University of Sydney ecologist Chris Dickman and colleagues: an estimated 480 million mammals, birds and reptiles affected in New South Wales alone since September 2019. Dickman soon raised his national estimate to more than a billion animals, and a later study put the number of animals killed or displaced at around three billion, most of them reptiles. These were modelled estimates rather than counts, but they showed the scale of the disaster.
Koalas were among the most visible victims. Early reports feared that a large share of some local populations had been lost, especially on the New South Wales coast and on Kangaroo Island. Koalas tend to climb higher into the canopy when threatened, which can leave them trapped above a fire and very hard for people on the ground to see.
A smoke-filled orange sky over burnt bushland during the fires. Smoke like this could hang over towns for days, making searches by eye even harder.
Taylor: the springer spaniel who points up at koalas
Taylor sits on the back of a vehicle with her handler, Ryan Tate, between searches. Tate runs Tate Animal Training Enterprises, a business that provides detector dog services.
Taylor was four years old during the fires. She was trained to find koalas by scent and to show her handler exactly where they are. In calm air, Tate explained, she sits right under the tree and points her nose up toward the koala. On windy days, when scent drifts, she is trained to look for fresh koala droppings instead, and the team then calls in people to scan the canopy above.
The search starts with the command "Koala, find!", and every find earns her a tennis ball or a treat. Several of the koalas she located were taken to Port Macquarie's Koala Hospital for treatment. Tallies of her finds varied as the season went on: an early figure shared online was eight koalas, and by 9 January 2020 US news reports said she had helped rescue 15 koalas in New South Wales.
Taylor rests on ash-covered ground in a burnt forest. Detection dogs working in fire grounds need breaks, water and paw checks, because the ground can stay hot and full of sharp debris.
Springer spaniels were bred as gundogs to find game by scent, which makes them a common choice for detection work. Taylor was reportedly bred from working lines, with relatives also employed as detection dogs, and was said to be trained on other species too, including introduced predators such as foxes and cats.
Watch the detection dogs at work
This 7News Australia report followed the dogs into burnt bushland. It shows the basic routine: the dog works the area on a long line, slows down when it picks up scent, then signals at the base of a tree. Humans take over from there, checking whether the koala is healthy, injured or in need of food and water.
Bear: the koala dog who found more than 100
Bear, described at the time as a border collie cross, became the best-known koala detection dog in the world. He was one of the first dogs in Australia trained to find live koalas in the wild, working with IFAW and the University of the Sunshine Coast's Detection Dogs for Conservation programme.
His story is a good example of how these dogs are chosen. Bear had so much energy and drive that he was hard to live with as a family pet. In detection work, that obsession became an asset. When he caught koala scent, he dropped down at the base of the tree, and his reward was a ball.
During the Black Summer fires he helped locate more than 100 koalas, often wearing protective boots on the hot ground, and drew praise from celebrities including Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio. Bear was named IFAW's Animal of the Year and Puppy Tales Australian Dog of the Year, and a documentary and a book were made about his life. In the years after the fires he kept working on rescue missions and on surveys that help researchers understand how koalas recover from fire.
Bear retired in March 2026, aged 11, after about a decade of work, and now lives on the Sunshine Coast with one of his former handlers. Romane Cristescu, a conservation ecologist at the university and one of his handlers, put his impact simply: "He melted hearts all around the world."
What happens to the koalas after they are found
Two rescued koalas cling to a branch in a shaded enclosure. Animals found after the fires were checked for burns, dehydration and hunger before any decision about release.
A dog's signal is only the first step. Trained rescuers climb or use equipment to reach the koala, and wildlife carers or vets assess it. Many survivors had burnt paws from climbing hot trees or walking over scorched ground, and many were dehydrated because the leaves they normally get moisture from had been destroyed.
Koala hospitals and wildlife carers, including the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, treated dozens of burnt koalas during the crisis, helped by donations from around the world. Recovered animals were released when there was enough food in the area to support them; some from Kangaroo Island had to be cared for on the mainland and could not go home.
Blackened tree trunks and bare ground after the fire passed. Surveys of landscapes like this, often with detection dogs, show whether koalas are returning as the eucalypts regrow.
Why detection dogs matter for conservation
Dogs can search large areas faster than people looking up into the trees, and they find animals that eyes miss. The same skills are used outside emergencies: conservation dogs survey koala populations before land is cleared, track threatened species and sniff out invasive animals.
The Black Summer showed how valuable that work can be in a crisis. It also showed its limits. Dogs find koalas, but people rescue and treat them, and only healthy habitat lets them survive in the long run. If you want to help, supporting established wildlife hospitals and conservation groups, and following their advice during fire seasons, does more than any viral post.
Explore the related article: Australian Reservists Helping Care for Bushfire-Affected Koalas.
Sources: photos via Tate Animal Training Enterprises on Facebook; video: 7News Australia; Free Malaysia Today / AFP: Rescue dog Taylor sniffs out injured koalas; FOX 4: Koala-sniffing dog aids in 15 wildlife rescues; Noosa Today: Hero dog retires; Wikipedia: 2019–20 Australian bushfire season; IFAW.
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