Friday 26 December 2008
Koalas in the news
It started with a little press release, suggesting that adopting a koala for Christmas might be a more meaningful way to spend your dough than buying Dad the ubiquitous three-pack of socks from Lowes. The story -- Forget socks, adopt a koala for Christmas -- got picked up by Reuters and went viral. The message to adopt a koala for a loved one for Christmas ended up on blogs, news services and websites around the world. By the time the story found its way to a paper in India, the koalas were no longer alternative gifts to socks, they were in the socks: Koalas in socks!.
The Hospital has been flat-chat (gratefully so) filling the orders that began flooding in from around the world: World donates $16,000 to our koalas.
The Hospital is just delighted by the response and can't wait to start putting the money to good koala use.
On a separate note, I (belatedly) came across this interesting article describing how scientists have been utilising mobile phone technology to monitor koala mating noises: Mobile phones eavesdrop on Aussie koalas. Well, if that's all it takes, I could easily have lobbed my phone out the window these last few nights: the koalas hanging around our backyard have been bellowing up a storm lately.
You can adopt a koala all year round here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow, that that is fantastic! I am so glad that all that press coverage got increased donations. Let's hope for even more coverage next year. What with the news being all economic downturn and violent deaths I know that news producers are always looking for one or two lighter stories to cover to break up the general feeling of doom and gloom and adopting a poor wee koala at Christmas time (how about an Easter Drive? and don't forget birthday presents...) fits the bill perfectly!
ReplyDeleteLeslie Hung (who still only knows how to post anomymously...)
Funny thing - when blogging with Koalas this template & colors seem to be the obvious choice.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a whole of great new work can now be done with all those donations...fantastic!!
ReplyDelete