South Carolina
A snapshot featuring former state leaders and Queensland koalas.
Formal agreements include our sister-state relationship with South Carolina, signed in 1999. This has borne a number of successful research alliances over the years between leading South Carolina and Queensland universities and institutions. These include Queensland University of Technology (QUT), the University of Queensland, the University of South Carolina and Clemson University, South Carolina.
It all began with a couple of koalas. Female koalas Lottie and Killarney help cement the relationship and also played a key role in partnered research.
The koalas were gifted to Riverbank Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, as part of an innovative breeding program. Its achievements included new semen capture techniques that helped improve the genetic diversity and health of the zoo’s koala population – just one example of our successful science collaborations in action.