Professor Frederic Wood Jones releasing the first Koalas introduced to Kangaroo Island in 1923. Wood Jones was Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide and Honorary Curator of Mammals at the South Australian Museum. In 1923-25 he published The mammals of South Australia. Along with a number of other naturalists he was concerned about the plight of the koala in South Australia.

Koalas were relatively common in the south east of South Australia at the time of European settlement but by the 1930s they were considered extinct on the State's mainland, despite becoming protected fauna by law in 1912. The ravages of hunting, land clearance and disease were responsible.

Since the koalas have no natural predators on the Island, and an abundance of food, they thrived. So much so that there have been attempts to control the population by relocation, beginning in the 1960s to the Riverland, Adelaide Hills, Eyre Peninsula and the South-East. The idea of culling the koala population on Kangaroo Island has been controversial and deemed undesireable by the government while sterilisation has been tried. This method was controversial and caused a public outcry and heated debate.

Wood Jones, Frederic, 1879-1954