MELBOURNE:Specialised drones are being tested in a programme to boost koala numbers on Australia's east coast, dropping seeds of gum trees as part of a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) scheme to regenerate bushland torched in the country's historic bushfires.<br /> <br /> Gum tree leaves are koala's main food source, and restoring bushland and forest habitat razed in the 2019-2020 fires is key to their long-term survival in New South Wales state.<br /> <br /> The fires killed or displaced 3 billion mammals, birds and reptiles, the WWF estimates, and destroyed or damaged up to 7 billion trees across 11 million hectares (37 million acres) of Australia's southeast, equal to half the area of the United Kingdom.<br /> <br /> WWF's Australia unit is seeking to raise A$300 million ($210 million) over five years to fund the initiative to try the seed drones and other methods to revive forest habitat, aiming to double koala numbers on the east coast.<br /> <br /> "The magnitude of the bushfire crisis requires us to respond at a scale that's never been done before," said WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman.<br /> <br /> "One of the new ways we're doing this is using drones that can put large amounts of seed across landscapes and ... reach inaccessible areas much easier," he said.<br /> <br /> Some of the WWF drones can plant 40,000 seeds a day and will help create corridors so that koalas and other wildlife can move across a landscape fragmented by fire and land clearing, O’Gorman said in a statement.<br /> <br /> In June, a parliamentary inquiry found that koalas in New South Wales state could become extinct by 2050 unless immediate action is taken to protect them and their habitat.<br /> <br /> Australia's most recent bushfire season was one of its worst ever, killing 34 people and destroying nearly 3,000 homes, after years of drought left bushlands unusually dry.