TWEED Shire Council is going high tech in a bid to protect the region's vulnerable koala population.

Drones fitted with infra-red cameras and artificial intelligence are being tested in an attempt to better track and monitor koalas in the region.

The Tweed koala population has been officially listed as endangered with Uki-based ecologist Dr Steve Phillips earlier this year estimating that there were only about 100 koalas remaining in the region.

Scott Hetherington, senior leader of the council's biodiversity program, said the exact size of the population is unknown but confirmed koala activity had continued to decline.

"What we do know is that there has been a further reduction in activity since we first studied in 2011 and when we re studied in 2015,” he said. "But the numbers thing is a bit of a difficult issue and that comes back to the available survey techniques.”

Mr Hetherington said council was working with Queensland University of Technology researchers and Gold Coast and Logan councils to develop and trial technologies they hope will prove cheaper and more accurate than current tracking methods.

The technology is expected to complement the Koala Plan of Management introduced earlier this year.

"It will allow us to continue to improve what we are doing,” Mr Hetherington said.

"It will give us a finer scale, more accurate, more efficient way to continue to monitor and make sure we are doing everything we can.

"We're about to do a test flight in the Tweed. We've done several test flights further north and we know that the drones are doing it quite a lot quicker than people can do it but what we're yet to see is the accuracy.”

Meanwhile, Mr Hetherington said the koala management plan had provided some positives.

"We know we are in a situation where there is ongoing reduction in koala activity but having said that, we've also had some really nice outcomes of koalas using trees we have planted in the last two years,” he said.

"We know that our recovery action, particularly our new habitats are having some benefit. We've got a few little spots where we a seeing some okay numbers of koalas.”

To report a koala sighting phone 66221233. To read the Koala Plan of Management visit tweed.nsw.gov.au and follow the prompts.