Brisbane City Council enlisted the help of two English springer spaniels, Taz and Nutmeg, and with the help of OWAD Environment, the dogs covered about 330 kilometres of land across 12 locations to find koala faecal pellets, or scat.

The study, that cost the council about $130,000, is part of the council's $120 million plan to buy 10 years worth of bushland over a four year period.

"So the detection dogs have been out there sniffing out the scats identifying where koala populations exist and that is going to help inform us terrifically in terms of the purchases that we make," Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said.

OWAD Environment dog handler Olivia Woosnam said the results gathered were surprising - four areas had very high levels of koala activity while two of the sites showed no evidence of koala activity.

"We were very happy with the work of the detection dogs so we conducted 23 days of surveys across a dozen areas across the local government area and we were quite surprised with the level of koala activity that we found," Ms Woosnam said.

"There were some areas that are really quite highly modified but thankfully there were still pockets of nice bushland left in those landscape and to be honest some of those I wasn't expecting.

"We will have the results in a few weeks from now and are very anxious to see those results in terms of genetic diversity and also diseases.

"From there we hope much can be done and will be done to ensure the long term viability of koalas in Brisbane and hopefully wider southeast Queensland."

The results:

Deagon Wetlands and Third Lagoon

• Koala scats were detected in Sandgate Third Lagoon in the parcel of land to the west of Deagon Deviation.
• No koala activity in the eastern section of Third Lagoon or Deagon Wetlands.

Bayside Parklands

• Very high koala activity detected throughout this area.

Belmont Hills Bushland and Spring Creek Reserve

• High level of koala activity detected in Belmont Hills Bushland.

Brisbane Koala Bushlands (north) - 2016 trial area

• High level of koala activity detected.

Brisbane Koala Bushlands (south)

• Detected significant koala activity and collected a large number of scats for analysis.

Tones Road Park/Edwards Park/Secam Street Park

• Extremely high koala activity at this location.
• A number of scats collected for analysis and spotted 5 individual koalas on site during the survey.

Wynnum Road Park and Cannon Hill Bushlands

• Koala activity detected in Cannon Hill Bushland Reserve.
• Wynnum Road Park is wet Melaleuca ecosystem and mostly underwater. The dogs did indicate koala activity however no scats were found.

Wolston Creek Bushland Reserve/Wolston Road Park/Spine Street Park/Wacol Station Road Park

• No koala activity detected.

Shelley Road Park - West Region

• No koala activity detected.

Toohey Forest - South region

• High koala activity detected.

Whites Hill Bushland

• Very high koala activity detected within this reserve.

Marstaeller Road Reserve, Mt Crosby

• A small number of koala scats collected in the northern section of this site.

Keperra Bushlands

• Koala activity detected in Keperra Bushlands.

Ms Woosnam said this was the first time the council had done a study like this so had no results to compare.

"But if you look at previous works by other experts over the years and over the decades there does seem to be un undeniable downward trend," she said.

Cr Quirk said the information from the results would help the council determine where was best to spend the dollar on bushland purchases.

"It will inform if there is the potential to release different populations of koalas into some of those areas but importantly in the shorter term it's about where do we best spend the dollar on bushland purchases," he said.

"We want to make sure we can get that land as early as possible with the emphasis around koala populations."

The final lab results from the tested scat are due back in a few weeks.