All quiet on the koala front

It's the promise of joey love that draws me to Kimmy's yard. At that moment, Peter enters yard 9 bearing leaf. He joins me over where Kimmy is holding court. She's crept as far as she can up a low fork in order to lean in towards us Oxley Jo-fashion, like a cocktail olive on a toothpick.

Anna Bay Sooty
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I've been popping into the hospital over the last few days, not to wrangle, but to catch up with different hospital folk. Compared to when I started here back in January, it's a different place. For the first time in my experience, the units in ICU are completely empty! Strolling through the ICU hallway, I see some old names still up on the individual whiteboards; they seem like a catalogue of times gone by -- Innes Tony, Ocean Therese, Kennedy Easy, Morrish Steven, Candelo Cool; and some new names, the quick turnarounds that are quickly diagnosed and (hopefully) released -- Garden Wellie, Hart Jumper, Change Gunyah...oh wait a minute, that's probably not a koala name :)

Actually, the whole of the ICU is having a spring (make that, winter) clean. All the gunyahs (the wooden beams the koalas sit on) have been removed pending replacement. I also hear that the whole place is to have a fresh lick of paint too.

Links VTR was released in earlier in the week, by his own "mum", Barb, the lady who raised him from no more than a stocking-filler to the robust little fellow that delighted everyone who cast their eye on him. Anna Bay Miles has also been returned to his melaleuca-laden home of Anna Bay. Anna Bay Sooty is in an outside yard instead of an aviary. Morrish Steven was released and Candelo Cool has been moved up to join Tractive Golfer in yard 10.

It may seem like the koala hospital is grinding to a halt -- far from it. Winter is the time for catching up with the tasks that simply don't get a look-in during the face-paced, full-house of mating season. There's working on new displays, updating the details of koalas available for adoption, yard maintenance, detailed cleaning, improving our processes, etc.

Ocean Kimmy is still putting on weight (no doubt since she doesn't have to share her tucker with Linksy!). Kempsey, Bonny and Birthday Girl are the same, but Wiruna Lucky has developed the curious habit of storing mulched up leaf in the side of her cheek, giving the impression of a swollen face. Apparently, it's not uncommon in older koalas. If we notice it, we're to massage the leaf down and she should swallow it right away. Funny koala!


Birthday Girl
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Now it's the Sunday shift; Jim and Paul are in yard 10 today, while Barb and John are doing the smaller outside yards. I'm in yard 9 on my own today. Ocean Kim is a sleeping grey lump in the tree over in yard 9a. She looks like she's a sleep.There's only two koalas left in this main yard: Bonny Fire is up a tree (although I hear that she makes more of an appearance since Lucky's moved over to yard 10; there's obviously some cohabitation issues going on there); and Birthday Girl is uncharacteristically planted down on the main gunyah looking at me with interest. She's usually the permanent fixture on the standalone gunyah nearer to yard 9a, but today she has the main gunyah all to herself. I start feeding her and she submits to the process willingly.

Birthday Girl's a large koala for a female; she's curled in the intersection of the beams with her not inconsiderable furry bottom protruding. Some of her fur is damp in places. She reaches towards me but without much effort or enthusiasm. She's arthritic, plus she's probably learned that breakfast is a sure thing. After the feed, she curls in on herself and goes to sleep.


Birthday Girl
From koalawrangler's gallery.
It's actually nice doing this yard alone; it's got a different configuration to the other yards so it requires some coordinating that's useful to do things at your own pace. There are six pots of leaf: two for recycle and four for fresh. As I prepare the recycled leaf -- separating the best of yesterday's leaf from the chewed or trampled, to replenish the red-striped recycle pots -- I look towards yard 9a and meet eyes with Ocean Kim. She's awake in her high tree fork and is surveying my actions at the leaf-rack with interest. When she sees me looking at her, she dislodges herself from her forky lokout and picks her way down the tree to the gunyah.

Ocean Kim
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It's the promise of joey love that draws me to Kimmy's yard. At that moment, Peter enters yard 9 bearing leaf. He joins me over where Kimmy is holding court. She's crept as far as she can up a low fork in order to lean in towards us Oxley Jo-fashion, like a cocktail olive on a toothpick.

"Ugly little thing, isn't she?" I joke to Peter. Not. She's insanely cute. She's actually just about the most gorgeous piece of koala fluff you're ever likely to meet. Her ears are huge, round and have long tufts of fur radiating from them, making her resemble something of a mousketeer. Kimmy has a cluster of hairs poking out at odd angles that constitute her eyebrows and endow her with a quizzical expression.

Ocean Kim
From koalawrangler's gallery.

What attests most to her joey purity is how very white her bottom is. It's like a little piece of sheepskin flecked with grey at the edges. We're given front-row seats to said bottom as Kimmy soon loses interest in us, turns tail and returns to her gunyah to see what yesterday's nicholii tastes like.

I return to the leaf-rack and finish off Bonny's and BG's leaf. Bonny's still high in her tree so it looks like she'll miss out on her brekky. I return to my leaf-cutting and finish the main yard before preparing leaf for Kimmy, who tucks in with her usual joey abandon, summoning a small audience of visitors to snap away at her cuteness.


Barb checking Jupiter Cheryl for ticks
From koalawrangler's gallery.
After finishing my yard, I duck in to visit who's recently been readmitted. She was found wandering a significant distance from where she was released. She seemed disoriented and was no doubt exhausted from her travels and from the number of ticks they found on her. She's in for observation and will soon be released again. Barb's found 8 ticks on her today alone.

Anna Bay Sooty is in the yard next door. I haven't seen her in the light before, since she spent her first few weeks with us in one of the aviaries. Jim and I both enter Sooty's yard to chat with Barb about her. Sooty used to be very timid but has come out of her shell somewhat. You can see that she has a slightly protuding tummy where she's carrying a pinkie in her pouch. There was a possibility that her body might reject the pinkie after her recent eye surgery to have her third eyelid removed, following her treatment for conjunctivitis. That risk appears to have passed now fortunately. It would great if she is still in the hospital when her joey makes an appearance!

Click here to view more of today's koala hospital snaps.

Introducing the new and improved Anna Bay Miles

With the new leaf in place, I may as well not even exist; I'm koala non grata. So perhaps what Cheyne's been saying all along really is true: Linksy doesn't actually love me for myself, but only for my eucalyptus! How crushing to be so used and brutally tossed aside by one so adorable. Linksy, you heart-breaker, love-taker.

Walcha Barbie
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I see from the noticeboard that Walcha Barbie has been moved from Barb's place to ICU. I go in to check on how she's settled in. There's a pot of leaf on the floor as well as in the usual bracket up higher. Despite her bandaged arm, she's just climbed up onto her gunyah from the ground. She looks just a like a bandaged bear; in fact, she could be a model for the koala on the official Koala Hospital T-shirt.

Across the hallway, I see that Morrish Steven has given his gunyah the disgruntled rockstar treatment again. He's managed to tear both towels off the middle of his gunyah, exposing the bare -- if a little gnawed -- wood. Innes Tony's empty unit suggests he's been shipped out or worse, but there's no word about that in the daybook. It turns how he's graduated to yard 10. Yay! Another koala on the road to recovery. I wonder how he's been enjoying the rain?

The boys (Jarrod & Paul) have put in a request to do yard 10, so I'm assigned the few front yards -- 3, 4 & 5. Kempsey is sleeping when I enter with her food. I remove the leaf pot nearest to her to give the tourists at the fence a gander while I feed her. She's getting better at it (or I am), less dribbles out although she's still got it all over her chin by the time she's done.


Links VTR
From koalawrangler's gallery.
While I'm feeding, I hear a scampering noise behind me. It's Linksy! He's perched on the tree in his yard, looking longingly towards Kempsey and me (and, more importantly, the food pot). I'm conscious of his interest the whole time I'm syphoning formula into Kempsey's mouth. Every time I turn to look behind me, there's Linksy, salivating, with an "I'll have what she's having" expression on his little face. Eventually he loses interest and ascends the tree to a higher branch; or he's being nonchalant -- we'll see what he's like as soon as fresh leaf is on offer.


Links VTR
From koalawrangler's gallery.
The leaf is ready to go early this morning so the yards get serviced according to the book; that is, I can finish feeding, raking, feeding, and leafing Kempsey's yard completely before proceeding to the next. While I'm at the leaf rack preparing today's branches, Links is overseeing my progress from his tree lookout. He seems almost ecstatic to see that it's finally his turn. He hightails it down the tree, peering towards me with interest. It's a race to get the leaf in the pot fast enough before Linksy is upon me, chomping apparatus at the ready.

With the new leaf in place, I may as well not even exist; I'm koala non grata. So perhaps what Cheyne's been saying all along really is true: Linksy doesn't actually love me for myself, but only for my eucalyptus! How crushing to be so used and brutally tossed aside by one so adorable. Linksy, you heart-breaker, love-taker. No longer of any use to him, he parks his tush on the gunyah and settles in for a good graze. I stare dejectedly at him for a few minutes, before shuffling away to the compost to empty Little Lord Linksleroy's poo bucket. At least I still have that honour. Sniff.

At the poo bin, I meet Chris who's involved in bush regeneration to ensure there will be plenty of koala food for years to come. He explains that, with a bit of chemical help, the koala poo breaks down nicely into soil and is returned to the earth to help grow more eucalypts. What a great little ecosystem.

Anna Bay Miles
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Next is the latest hospital success story, Anna Bay Miles. I'd noticed that Emma had been taking some great snaps of Anna Bay Miles, since he'd been moved outside. You'd never know to look at his left eye that he'd every had conjunctivitis. There's also a healthy grey colour seeping back into his fur. It was nice to spend some time with him today.

Unlike Lord Linksy, Miles slept through the leaf preparations for the other two yards. His food pot was in the treatment room as it has some medicine added by the hospital supervisor. Cheyne was pleased to report that his formula dose has been reduced by half and he no longer requires the nutritional gel supplement he's been on since arrival. He's starting to flesh out nicely, better filling the frame of the adult male that he is.

Anna Bay Miles
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I have to coax Miles awake, but when he comes to, he's very interested in the food. I'm astonished by the creamy grey colour of his facial fur and the glossy blackness of his nose. Like most koalas, he has a fuzzy pink chin and a pink tongue that darts in and out of his mouth while he feeds. He is an insistent feeder now, gripping the wide part of the syringe in his teeth (which is a no-no). I do my best to only dip the slim end of the syringe in his mouth, but it's like he wants to chew the whole thing up. He also dribbles some of back up, which I try to catch in the pot. Some of it lands on my hand; it's warm from his mouth. Didn't Miles attend Cheyne's koala-feeding class? hey, wait a minute, he was actually the "demonstration koala" who fed so compliantly! What's happened!?) Despite flouting all the feeding rules, it's great to see him being so pushy now, after his former passivity.

As soon as the food's finished, Miles returns to his sleeping cocoon-shape. Unfortunately, I still need to disrupt him a little in order to replenish his leaf pots. He's wedged himself between a pot and a gunyah beam; I have to dislodge the pot from behind his back, but he manages to remain in his curled up position. Replacing the pot is another story; this elicits a little grunt as he shuffles off down the other end of the gunyah for some peace and quiet.

He goes to climb through the other leaf pot, now filled with towering fresh leaf. In doing so, he puts his wait on a branch which promptly snaps. Miles loses his balance and dangles precariously, hanging onto the gunyah with his curved claws. His round bottom is swinging before me as he endeavours to clamber back on the gunyah. I cup my hands around it and give him a little supportive heave-ho until he finds purchase back on the gunyah. Funny little acrobat.

Click here to view more of today's koala hospital snaps.

Hospital for...possums?

Anna Bay Miles
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I wasn't able to fend off the non-koala part of my life the last two Thursdays and so missed my koala shift on both those days. (I told Amanda in advance, of course.) So today I'm back giving the understudy teamleader thing a go.

Anna Bay Miles is now in an outside yard looking positively glowing in the morning sun. He is a changed koala. I remember having his wet bottom resting against my smock while Cheyne fed him on the treatment bench. There was quite a stink coming from his wet bottom. His fur was discoloured which can occur when a koala is very unwell. I remember the strange blonde colour of Dunbogan Val's fur, a little koala I encountered when I first started working at the hospital.

As Amanda and I walk about with our leaf chart, I realise that Linksy has moved from yard 9a to his own digs in yard 4, so there'll be no more adorable scenes of joey love between him and Kimmy for us to fawn over.

Jackie greets me with the rhetorical "another beautiful day in heaven" -- I have to agree with her.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm in yard 10 with Vanessa. Golfer is down on his gunyah for a change so I start to feed him, while Vanessa feeds Sandfly Jye. As Golfer feeds, I notice an indentation in his fur. It's a huge tick pulsing near the skin. It's on his arm, so I don't want to risk digging for it. Andrea's doing her rounds in the yard. I ask her to pull it off while I distract him with formula. Even with the distraction, he takes a swipe at a Andrea. She's too quick for him though and comes away wielding the full tick in her fingers.

Ocean Therese is in fine form. She reaches out for me, gently swiping for attention. Beatrice is also helping in the yard. She tells me that Jye is doing something strange. He's sitting in the corner of his yard again, looking like a yogi in the lotus position.

Oxley Jo is curled up like a baby bunting (with the fur wrap built in). She regards me sleepily.


Oxley Jo
From koalawrangler's gallery.
I mention Jye's behaviour to Cheyne and Andrea in the treatment room. Cheyne says it's important to bring it to their attention if we think the koalas are doing something strange. Andrea thinks it's because Jye's bored; he's on the last phase of his treatment and is just marking time before release back into the wild.

We have an early tea break in the dayroom. I ask Andrea about a few of the other patients. I'm concerned about the beautiful Bellevue Bill and his kidney damage. Innes Tony has kidney damage too, but his prognosis doesn't seem to be as poor as Bill's. Fortunately it's not curtains yet for Bill though; he may yet turn a corner.

I ask the other vollies if anyone has seen Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The scene where Borat tries to capture Pamela Anderson in his wedding sack reminded in a comically exaggerated way of koala-bagging (although when we do it, it's a lot less rough!).


Watch Borat bag Pamela!
Provided by Flixster
Actually, when we bag koalas in the hospital, it's usually for their comfort. Sometimes it's easier to feed a newcomer koala by securing the mouth of the bag around their face, or it the bag can be used to shield the koala from something unpleasant like an injection.

Reading the daybook, I see that Jupiter Cheryl and Kennedy Easy have both been released!

Just as I walk out the door towards my car, I hear a voice demanding if I work at the hospital. I turn to see a chap walking towards me with some urgency, carrying a plastic garbage bag before him. He tells me, "I've got a sick animal, but I'm not sure what it is". I usher him quickly into the hospital, calling Cheyne and Andrea to assist. It turns out to be a ringtail possum wrapped in a towel. Cheyne gently examines it while Amanda quickly mixes up some rehydrating liquid to feed the little fellow. As Cheyne checks it over, the long tail curls around the little body. Cheyne gently twirls it away, rewraps it in the towel and places it in carboard box. As with koalas, it's better to hide a hurt animal from the light.

Click here to view more of today's koala hospital photos.

National Koalagraphic

We're getting a bit of blue gum lately. I call it Skippy leaf -- according to my dusty mind records, it's exactly the kind of leaf that Sonny Hammond used to blow against to summon Skippy the bush kangaroo to the (usually improbable) rescue in the eponymously titled TV show.

Links Lorna
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I get in at 7am again today, Thursday. I'm continuing my teamleader training with Amanda. The concreters are at work pouring slabs around the edge of yards 1a, 2, 3, 4, 5 and part of yard 9. Just in time for the koala hospital open day on Saturday 7 April 2007.

Amanda has already checked that all koalas are present and accounted for inside in ICU. Like last time, she draws up a matrix with the acronym for each leaf type in columns across the top and the name of each outside koala down the side. Teamleaders only read leaf for those koalas directly in the care of the hospital, not the ones being monitored by the uni researchers. We then head out to the yards and attempt to determine which leaf is flavour of the month and which isn't.

The different types of leaf flummoxed me when I first began at the hospital. Several weeks of cutting and stripping branches on every shift has produced a gradual familiarity. Now I'm astounded by my growing ability to recognise different eucalypt types. I can pretty much tell apart Tallowwood, Nicholii, Melaleuca, Swamp Mahogany and Blue Gum. Swamp Mahogany is always a koala favourite -- for the koalas around here anyway; a koala from a different part of Australia would probably eat a different array of leaf, depending upon what is available in their home area.

We're getting a bit of blue gum lately. I call it Skippy leaf -- according to my dusty mind records, it's exactly the kind of leaf that Sonny Hammond used to blow against to summon Skippy the bush kangaroo to the (usually improbable) rescue in the eponymously titled TV show. Skippy was the after-school staple from my childhood. (You can see the scintillating opening credits to this iconic piece of kitsch 1960s Australiana here.)

I should qualify that I can generally pick the different leaf as long as each is in a nice single branch, but not necessarily when they're cut up and bunched together in the pot. It's a bit like being able to recognise whole heads of lettuce -- cos, iceberg, mignonette, romano....and then having to 'read' said leaves from within a mesclun salad. And 'reading' the leaf is what we have to do.

When we head into yard 10, there is koala on Tractive Golfer's gunyah and it's not Tractive Golfer! Yard 10 is a large open yard with a small circular yard within it that houses Ocean Therese. There are also about six smaller yards that run along the periphery of yard 10; these yards contain some of the koalas being monitored by Sydney uni researchers.

Tractive Golfer, one of the hospital's long-term residents, has free run in the main area of yard 10. He has scoliosis, producing a distinctively misshapen spine, whereas this unfamiliar koala is small, has normal spine curvature, and female -- judging by the tag in her right ear. Wait a minute! It's that tricksy O'Briens Fiona a.k.a. FiFi Houdini! Before I start wondering by what rare feats of magic she got from yard 9 (her most recent stomping ground) to yard 10, Amanda explains that, according to the whiteboard, Fiona's just been moved into the circular enclosure in yard 10 with Ocean Therese. She's obviously managed to scale her enclosure to make it into the main part of yard 10 (so still safely captive within the hospital). There she is sitting there happily chomping on Golfer's leaf.

There's a fine line to be trod between confining the koalas securely, but still enabling them the open-air environment they covet as wild animals. Most of the time, this balance works beautifully: the koalas enjoy both a secure outside existence in the yards while they still receive the best possible treatment and care. In Fiona's case, she seems to be a born roamer, and like her famous namesake Harry Houdini, is an expert at escapology.


Amanda & O'Briens Fiona
From koalawrangler's gallery.
By now Fiona has made her way to the ground and is coming towards us, ever after that elusive formula. Amanda mutters that she wishes she had a towel so that she could pick her up and redeposit her in her correct yard. "How 'bout my smock?". I whip off my koalawrangler smock and it works a treat. All koalas present and accounted for in their correct yards.

With the leaf checks done, I scatter the collection boxes around the yards. The morning troupe is trickling in. Vanessa and I are doing yard 10 together today. There's a couple of photographers here from National Geographic who are snapping away as we work. They're especially interested in the feeds. I go in to feed Sandfly Jye and wonder how my hair looks (like is there a huge green insect in it like the other day?). I'm mostly carrying on with my work as usual, except that I feel a little self-conscious cracking off superfluous stems at the leaf-rack with a photographer clicking away right in front of me. Now I know how the koalas feel when I'm on shift. Should I "vogue" or something?

Oxley Jo
From koalawrangler's gallery.

When I carry the wet leaf into Oxley Jo's yard, the photographer's compadre interrupts and asks if I can enter at less than a breakneck speed. And can I walk around the gunyah the long way. Okay, shurrrrr. I wonder what captions will appear under these photos. They dutifully copy down our names and the names of the koalas. I wonder if I'll be listed as "Oxley Jo" or "Links Lorna" by mistake.

Cheyne is giving "how to feed" refresher training to all the shifts this week. The first koala I ever fed was Kempsey Carolina. Her feeding style is pretty unique and I had to make it up with every new koala since, so it's good to understand the right way to do it. Cheyne has Anna Bay Miles to demonstrate on. The two most important things appear to be how much of the syringe you place in the koala's mouth and how fast you squirt. Only the skinny tip of the syringe should enter the koala's mouth, even though they may try to draw the wide part of the syringe in. Sometimes they chew on the end too; this makes sense since chewing is the natural way for them to eat, not slurping on a plastic tube. However, letting the koala chew on the syringe increases the likelihood that they'll bite a bit off -- not good. Although they will often try to pull the syringe to the front, it's place to slot the syringe tip along the edge of the koala's mouth between the front and back teeth. Their left-hand side is usually best since most people are right-handed and therefore feed from that side.

The other important aspect of feeding is not to force the formula out too quickly. No-one wants liquid syphoned into their mouths like a firehose -- including koalas. Drinking the formulat should be a pleasurable experience -- they should be allowed to enjoy it!

When I return to yard 10, I glance over to yard 9 and notice that both joeys in 9a are bunched up very high in their tree. Wow! Linksy is really climbing now, like a real koala. I'm happy-sad about it; glad for him that he's koalarising along with dehumanising, but sad that it spells his imminent release. I don't think he weigh enough yet though, so we'll have him for a while longer.

Before I go, Tricia points out Oxley Westi in a lounge pose. They usually let their limbs hang or stretch them out when they're trying to cool down.


Oxley Westi
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Click here to view more of today's koala hospital photos.

Wet koalas, wet koalawranglers

I'm talking to one visitor about koalas with wet-bottom, but she suddently breaks off the conversation to report, "SorrySorry, at first I thought it was a leaf but, actually, you have a praying mantis on your head".

Lookout Harry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It poured rain all night, accompanied by a wild wind that disconcerted the cat. She cried out several times during the night and demanded comforting. During these wakeful moments I wondered whether the koalas were okay during the blustery night.

I woke early and got to the hospital at 7.45. Strangely, Peter, the Sunday team leader wasn't there yet. I walked around the grounds and all koalas seemed well, albeit a little damp. Sandfly Jye and Birthday Girl were the only two koalas who were completely awake. Still no sign of Peter which was really peculiar. Jo, another volunteer, arrived and she gave Pete a buzz on his mobile. "Oh", I heard her say. "Daylight saving's ended". That's right, the clocks went back during the early hours of this morning. It wasn't now 8am, it was 7am! D'oh.

Shamefaced, I ask Peter if there's anything useful I can do to fill in the next hour, like rinse the feedpots of their anti-bac. He says, sure, and I can make up today's feed as well. I feel well practised after closely watching Amanda mixing up the feed, and then preparing it myself last Thursday. It's complicated though -- different dosages, different types of formula, some are administered by vollies, some by vets. So I talk to myself throughout the process, wetting face-washers to go under each filled pot. There's a black lump in the sink which, when I tweeze it out with my fingers, I recognise as being a tick. It might have fallen off one of yesterday's vollies.

Sandfly Jye
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Emma and I are assigned to yard 10. It's started raining again and I'm relieved to have my plastic poncho. Emma starts to feed Ocean Therese and I head in to feed Sandfly Jye. He's perched on his gunyah among the leaf fronds and accepts the first syringe of formula. He jerks his arm towards me, not in a swipe, but probably to grip onto me as he would while eating leaf. It becomes awkward to feed him this way as my arms are bare, so I give up until a little later when he's more in the mood to feed.

By now, Emma is feeding Tractive Golfer who is sitting on the edge of his gunyah where he's getting rained on. She's got no wet-weather gear and is getting wetter by the minute. I start to rake out Ocean Therese's yard -- she's also drenched but outside her the shelter of her leaf, hugging a tree. A rainjacket-clad Andrea comes through to do her rounds. I try to feed Jye some more. He's moved up to the highest fork of the gunyah, shirking the shelter of the overhanging branches of leaf. This time, he drinks more readily and lets me finish the pot.

Sandfly Jye
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

As I set out to sweep his yard, he jumps down to the lower beam and leans towards me. He's a funny one in terms of instigating human contact, chasing me around his gunyah the other day. I don't know if it's possible for him to jump on me...well, I know it's quite possible, I just don't know if he'd do it. I give him a wide berth and he scales down to the ground. At first he runs towards me, so I squat down to his level while I scrub out one of this leaf pots. I'm able to stand up and go about my cleaning and he generally leaves me alone; occasionally I feel a claw on my sock, but that's about it. He's bounding around his yard, scampering through puddles, not noticing the rain.


Sandfly Jye
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.
Lookout Harry and Warrego Martin are next. I swing Harry's umbrella around to shield him better from the rain. I empty one of his pots, revealing a cache of koala pellets in the fork of the beams once the leaf has shifted. Harry's face is encircled by leaf. Martin is cozy under his umbrella -- the only koala in the yard who's managed to stay completely dry. As I rake around his yard, he decides I've encroached his personal space and heads north...up to the spokes of his umbrella.

Warrego Martin
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Emma has looked after the koalas at the other end of yard 10: Links Lorna and Ocean Roy. We're now both drenched, despite our rain ponchos. We head inside for a cuppa and to dry off. Jim ducks his head into the day-room to ask if there's a trick to moving a koala off his towel. Jim's in ICU, warm and dry. I tease him that there are benefits to arriving late. He's replaced one of the towels on Anna Bay Miles's gunyah, but the koala is facing away from the direction Jim wants him to go and refusing to budge. I recall that Miles likes Melaleuca blosssoms so I head out to the leaf shed and try to hunt some out. I return with a branch. Miles nibbles the blossom enthusiastically, but won't be lured away. I suggest to Jim that he just leaves him; it's more distressing to force a koala to move that doesn't want to. He'll move when he's ready.

Danae is finished in the yards too, so she, Emma and I pitch in to help finish the units in ICU before the fresh leaf arrives. Emma takes Jupiter Cheryl, Danae takes Morrish Steven, and I take Calwalla Bill. His unit is wonderfully dry and quite clean. He hasn't kicked over his dirt or water, like many of the ICU koalas do; but, after I sweep away his paper and poop, he continues to drop pellets like airborne missiles, the same as on Friday.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

The leaf arrives and we re-don our ponchos and head back to the swamp of yard 10. We're realy drenched now, despite the wet-weather gear. Ocean Therese is still wrapped around her tree out in the rain, even though I replenish her leaf. Her fur looks soggy; I can squeeze it between my fingers and watch the rivulets run off. I could probably wring her out. She seems unpeturbed.

We do our best to give the koalas tall branches that droop to provide plenty of shelter. I struggle to stock Sandfly Jye's highest pot as I get asked a few questions by the tourists. I'm talking to one visitor about koalas with wet-bottom, but she suddently breaks off the conversation to report, "Sorry, at first I thought it was a leaf but, actually, you have a praying mantis on your head". I calmly call to Emma to get it off me. She doesn't want to touch it and flicks it off with a bunch of leaf.

The praying mantis that was in my hair!
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

here and Click here to view more of today's koala hospital photos.

Furry buddha

As I enter, Condon Geoff is seated behind a veil of uneaten Swamp Mahogany and naked leaf fronds looking like a koala version of Buddha. He stares at me beatifically from his verdant mount as I start to rake up his soggy newspaper and the random smattering of poo, like so many spent shell casings.

Oceanview Terry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm doing a Monday shift for the first time; they thought they'd be down on numbers so they called me in. Koalawrangler to the rescue (not). I'm paired with Jarrod to do yards 4, 5, and 6: Burraneer Henry (who I haven't seen on terra firma in quite a while), Kempsey Carolina and the babies (joeys Siren Gem and Lake Christmas [whom I've also never seen other than as a fuzzy blob on high]).

I can't resist popping my head in yard 9 to see if O'Briens Fiona is on the move. As usual, she's scuttling around begging for formula. I ask Geoff if he'd like some made up; I retire to the dayroom and beat up her double-dose of formula. By the time I get to yard 9, she's up a tree again. Fickle Fiona.

Kempsey Carolina
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I set out to feed our Kempsey, the blind permanent resident of yard 5 who never knocks back a feed. She's more dribblepuss than usual today, or maybe I'm just used to feeding koalas these days who are better at keeping it in their mouths. I do everything I can to keep the syringe high in the air, as Amanda first showed me. There's also the little trick of holding the syringe there once it's empty to encourage her to keep swallowing; the minute she lowers her head it all starts to slop out. Drops end up running down her chin, on her fur, on her leaf, on me. I manoeuvre the pot so that it's directly under her chin and this catches some of the run-off. As I fill the syringe, I notice little flecks of green: leaf pulp has mixed itself in with her dribbled formula.

At these close quarters, I find myself looking at Kempsey's eyes. Koala eyes are brown with a black almond-shape set vertically like a cat's. Kempsey's right eye is completely absent; all that remains is a sunken warp in the fur where the eye once was. I remember one of the uni vets telling me that the dead eye is worked out by the body (a case of abjection, if there ever was one); it heals over cleaner than any suture. Kempsey's left eye is intact, but blind. Instead of the almond cat's iris, there is a dun-coloured disc like a brown dilated pupil.

Dribbling aside, Kempsey is a pleasure to feed. She doesn't behave like the other, wild, koalas. She seems to have succumbed readily to her five-star care at the hospital. She accepts back scratches and chin tickles without resistance. Even wiping her face with a wet washer following her feed is a breeze compared to the other patients who usually move their face from side to side to avoid it: imagine the irritated face of a child submitting to having its face wiped by an overzealous mother.

Jarrod has finished in yards 4 and 6, so I duck my head into the aviaries to see if I can lend a hand. There are still three aviaries to do so I elect to clean the non-wet-bottoms, since I'm heading back into the healthy koalas yards again later when the new leaf arrives. Condon Geoff is in an aviary undergoing post-treatment monitoring. It seems that he has been successfully treated and, all going well, will be released soon. I'm especially pleased for him since he was the koala who seemed among the keenest to leave ICU.


Oceanview Terry
From koalawrangler's gallery.
As I enter, he's seated behind a veil of uneaten Swamp Mahogany and naked leaf fronds looking like a koala version of Buddha. He stares at me beatifically from his verdant mount as I start to rake up his soggy newspaper and the random smattering of poo, like so many spent shell casings.

I keep out of his way, taking the other leaf pot, emptying it, scrubbing out the leaf scum and refilling it in preparation for the fresh leaf. After the recent rain, the dirt comes up in moist chunks with the trowel. I refill his water bowl and turn to leaf.


Bellevue Bill
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Bellevue Bill gets sight of me from the aviary opposite. He stalks along his gunyah towards me like I have something he's after. Bill gets fed each day by the uni researchers. They're trialling him with some oral medication so perhaps he thinks I might have some tucker for him.

Oceanview Terry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Next I start on Oceanview Terry. He's down the far end of his gunyah, completely swathed in leaf. He looks like he wants to be alone, so I leave him be and start on his floor. Not having a towel to replace on the gunyah is lot more koala-friendly. You can pretty much keep out of their way. Unexpectedly, Terry decides to break through the leafy veneer and see what I'm up to. He scrambles along the gunyah adeptly like a tightrope walker, restlessly looking for fresh leaf. It must make them anxious, not being able to search out new leaf when they're ready. Still, they get it handed to them on a platter each morning, so that's the next best thing.

I'm crouched on the ground relaying Terry's paper. I look up and he's staring down at me quizzically. I wonder what they make of the daily ablutions we carry out for them. It's a hospital, so they get fresh water, dirt, leaf and floor coverings every day, 365 days a year. I tell him the leaf won't be long now.

Melaleuca
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

Time for a quick cuppa until Chris comes in and tells us the leaf's ready. He tells anyone who's listening that he's brought in a special lot of melaleuca for Anna Bay Miles. Miles is from Newcastle way, so it's a leaf he particularly likes. Apparently, when they had melaleuca earlier in the week, he wolfed down the bottlebrush-like flowers whole. Anything to build up his strength. I had seen Cheyne feeding him earlier on and mentioned to her that I'd seen him gnawing on his right knee yesterday. She hadn't heard about the behaviour so made a point of noting it down as something to watch for. It could signal some pain in that leg or his teeth.

With the leaf ready to go, we go back to the outside yards. Kempsey is ranging about on her gunyah so I feed her first, followed by the joeys. Next I fill Condon Geoff's empty pot. He gradually moves across to it, but tramples over the old leaf as he goes. I try gingerly to remove the old pot so that I can refill it with new leaf, but he eeps in protest. Okay, be that way. I remove the pot and leave behind the leaf he's sitting on, until he's distracted enough with eating the new leaf for me to whip the old out from under him.

Siren Gem
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I notice through the fence that Siren Gem is down in yard 6. Yippee! I get to feed him, which I've not done before. I go into the yard and he reaches out to me. He knows I have the potential to provide formula. I nip back to the dayroom and mix it up. He's reaching out for it by the time I get back. In between the syringes, his little tongue bobs in and out. Joeys are so compliant compared to their adult counterparts; having been raised in captivity, they aren't bothered by humans so long as we leave them be...and feed them on demand!

Click here to view more of today's koala hospital photos.

Morrish Steven

On the way out I'm joined by Jim who tells me "I got chased by Sandfly Jye today". Tell me about it. One of the other vollies got Jim on video doing circuits around the gunyah with Jye in hot pursuit. If the guy wins Funniest Home Videos, Jim reckons he's entitled to at least half.

Morrish Steven
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It's a dark, grey day today, after a dark and stormy night (as Snoopy says in Peanuts). It rained for a good 45 minutes during the night so the grounds are all wet; the aviaries sodden; and I can only imagine that there are some dripping koalas up in yard 10.

I start the day in ICU, something I haven't done in a long time. This is the koala cutting edge -- all the newest arrivals wind up in these indoor cubicles where they're closely monitored. Morrish Steven and Lake Private are new inmates. Anna Bay Miles, Jupiter Cheryl and Innes Tony are still there. Innes Tony is a wet bottom, now with affected kidneys.

Tozer Tom has been brought back inside from yard 10. He kept knocking over his umbrella so they removed it, but he was getting drenched being out there without cover. He's asleep when I go in with his food. I draw up a stool and start talking to him gently. I tentatively push the syringe through the leaf towards his mouth and he starts to drink. I wonder whether he is really awake; every time I pause to refill the syringe, he bows his head and nods off.

I set out to start on the non-wet-bottom units before the wet-bottom ones. Lake Private has climbed down to the lower beam on his gunyah to get to his leaf. I decide to leave him to it and start down the other end.

Morrish Steven, a newcomer, looks at me with interest as I enter his unit. He's got a shiny grey tick on his left hind leg, right where his upper claws are dangling. I don't want to risk a swipe if I go to pluck it off front-on. Hopefully, he'll turn into his leaf more and provide me with a better opportunity. He's clearly been climbing up and down his gunyah, since there is a lot of bark shavings on the ground and the gunyah looks dishevelled.

Both of his leaf pots look like they've been trampled. Most of the branches are snapped and dangling over the edge of the leaf pot, out of reach. I collect the best leaf and trim it back and water it, before refilling his pot. He starts chewing the leaf eagerly like it's fresh. That will tide him over until the new stuff arrives. For some reason, there's no water or dirt, which I also fix. Steven turns towards the old-fresh leaf and I act fast: it takes two firm tugs to release the tick. It's not a full one, by any means, so it fits into one of the small phial in the dayroom.

Jupiter Cheryl
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Next I service Jupiter Cheryl's unit. She's perched in the middle of her gunyah, just looking out. Emma and Danae are working on the other units. I pop my head in Anna Bay Miles' unit. He's not a well koala. He keeps gnawing at his own knee. I'm not sue what that signifies. He's still around, which is good; but, I'm not sure for how long.

Anna Bay Miles
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I head outside to see if John needs help in the aviaries. He's still got Ellenborough Nancy to do. I'm drawn to her for some reason; she's a challenge. It all goes well this morning. I replace her towel down one end and am able to pat her bottom to shift her down the other end. She then decides to climb down and range around the floor. She doesn't seem too interested in me, although I keep an eye on her. I swiftly tie down the other towel in time for her to return to the gunyah. The floor is sodden after the rain; her newspaper is dripping wet and full of poop. I scoop it all up and lay new paper down thickly.

When the new leaf arrives, I help John finish the aviaries. Sweet little Condon Geoff tucks into the tallowwood leaf immediately. He's out here on post-treatment observation. Hopefully that means he'll be released soon.

Siren Gem
From koalawrangler's gallery.

The girls have finished the ICU by this time. Emma has managed to catch Siren Gem down from his tree and is feeding him his formula. I sneak a little pat while he's distracted with feeding, before heading home.

On the way out I'm joined by Jim who tells me "I got chased by Sandfly Jye today". Tell me about it. One of the other vollies got Jim on video doing circuits around the gunyah with Jye in hot pursuit. If the guy wins Funniest Home Videos, Jim reckons he's entitled to at least half.

Click here to view all of today's koala hospital photos.

Distracting Jo

In both units I discover little caches of koala poo tucked into corners or squeezed under the wooden beams. Koala surprise!

Lookout Harry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Today I'm back in the aviaries, which is fine since I've not mucked these out for a while. Tricia and Danae are in yard 9, Paul's doing yards 1-3 and Ross is in yard 10 on his own, which he prefers. Amanda is training up John, who usually does data entry in the office; they're doing yards 5 and 6. Amanda tells me not to do Lookout Harry's aviary since he's being moved to a yard; no point in bothering him if he's going to new digs. This leaves three other units: Oceanview Terry, Bellevue Bill and da da da daaa Ellenborough Nancy. I always seem to leave Nancy till last for some reason...

Just before I start on Terry, Jo the vet calls to me for a hand with Oxley Jo. Many of the koalas on the Sydney uni drug trials get shots administered by the vets. Oxley Jo has this habit of not taking her eyes off you the whole time you're in her yard; her eyes follow you like those old paintings in gothic horror stories... This makes it hard to administer her medication. Jo wants me to 'distract' Oxley Jo while she gives her the shot. Ulp! Okay.

Predictably, Oxley Jo twists her little head to follow vet Jo when she enters the yard. But I've complicated matters by bringing up the rear; there's one of us front and back: she doesn't know which way to look. I start acting like a crazy woman, waving my arms in front of her face and going "la la la la" -- anything to keep her focused on me. When she turns towards vet Jo, I gently touch her paws and to keep her facing the front. It's all over as quickly as it's begun, but I tell Jo that she's still foiled my hopes of winning Oxley Jo over for good.

Back in the aviaries, Terry is conveniently down on the left by his leaf pot. This leaves me free to clean down the other end. Water and dirt put out the door, check. One leaf pot emptied and scrubbed, check. Poopy paper raked up and in the bin, check. Fortunately, his gunyah doesn't need a towel so it's a fast turnaround.

Jarrod has finished yard 4 and so starts in the aviaries. I'm out dumping some old leaf in the skip and return to find him rolling up Lookout Harry's paper. I quickly let him know that we're leaving him till last due to his impending move. Jarrod starts on Bellevue Bill.

I go into the day-room for a swig of water and see Cheyne in the treatment room with a sickly looking koala. He's sitting on the treatment table lapping up formula from a syringe. I remark that he looks so tame; Cheyne says that "tame" is never a term you want to find yourself using about a wild koala. It's Anna Bay Miles, the one whose diagnosis is "debilitated". He keeps backing away from the syringe so I step in to stand behind him and keep him on the bench. He's a wet bottom and the smell is overpowering. I really hope he'll be able to turn a corner, but the prognosis isn't good. Cheyne suggests I take off my smock, which has been pressed against Miles' wet bottom, to prevent infecting any of the other koalas.


Anna Bay Miles
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Jo comes into the aviaries to medicates the required koalas. Lookout Harry is unimpressed. Ellenborough Nancy is placid, but swings around at the last minute and prevents Jo from finishing the dose. I wouldn't want to take Nancy on when she's got a grump on. Now it's time for me to brave Ellenborough Nancy's unit. Ulp. She's actually in the corner, against the wall, which allows me to completely strip one side of her gunyah and replace the towel. The leaf isn't ready yet so most of the team takes an early tea break.

When I return with newspaper for Nancy's floor, she's still down the unclean end. I decide to wait till she moves of her own accord with the lure of fresh leaf before tackling the remaining towel. We learn that the leaf has arrived and suddenly all the racks are full of fluffy leaf and everyone is clipping away. Amanda is giving John her usual rigorous leaf-cutting tuition. I ask John if this is his first day in the yards, after his indoor duties. I tell him that this is the cutting edge of koala-wranging. "At the coal-face", he says". The koala-face, more like :)


Ellenborough Nancy
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Nancy finally moves so I can finish her gunyah. When I go in to stock up Oceanview Terry's leaf, he's still hovering around the remaining leaf pot. I talk to him quietly and gently brush his back so he knows I'm there. I reach for his leaf pot and startle him (despite what I thought was a huge build-up!). For one horrifying second, it looks like he's about to fall off his perch; instead he swivels from on top of the gunyah to beneath it, hanging on grimly. Oh no, I've knocked a sick koala off his gunyah! Well, not knocked, but frightened perhaps. Poor fellow! He climbs back up without incident, but I give him losts of fluffy wet leaf to compensate.

Lookout Harry is roaming around his unit; he's probably after some fresh leaf. He keeps standing on his hind legs and peering through the mesh. Lookout Harry, on the lookout. Amanda comes to retrieve him in a bag and shift him to yard 10. All that remains is for his aviary to be given a full clean. I need to check with Amanda exactly what is involved. I check with Jackie in ICU whether I can help with the units in there. Sandfly Jye has been moved so his unit needs a full clean also. I start mopping with bleach water, the walls and skirting boards. It's hard work.

I take a tea break in the dayroom and flick through the post-mortem reports which the vets file in a plastic binder for the vollies' information. Through it, I learn that Melaleuca Alfie, the one with damaged genitals from where a car clipped him, has been euthanased. He was such a bright koala; it's hard to see his life cut short. I ask Jo why these are called "necropsy" reports and not "autopsy". It's because the prefix "auto-" means "self"; a human carrying out a post-mortem on another person is an autopsy since they are the same species. Necropsies are carried out on other species.

I finish mopping Sandfly Jye's unit and soak his pots, broom and dust-pan in bleach and water. I do the same for Lookout Henry's aviary. Mopping out the aviary is even harder work that the unit. The mop is almost too long, yet I have to negotiate it around the walls, which are covered in mud from Harry's antics. In both units I discover little caches of koala poo tucked into corners or squeezed under the wooden beams. Koala surprise!

Click here to view more of today's koala hospital photos.

Wednesday

Cheyne is Chief Koalawrangler and you can tell by her confidence handling the koalas. She deftly plonks Tom on his gunyah; nonplussed, Tom tucks straight into his wet leaf and is immediately in the 'zone'.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I've been asked to fill for in Maggie on the Wednesday afternoon shift for the next two weeks. There are a host of people in the day-room when I enter: Cathy, the teamleader; a lady called Joy; Anne from Fridays who's working in the shop; Danae, the French backpacker; and Geoff, who's doing today's 3pm walk-and-talk.

Without much to do before 3pm, I wander through the yard. Burraneer Henry is, as ever, up his tree; this time his arms are dangling down in a comical gesture. Back inside, Cathy is mixing up formula and starts to tell us some koala tales. For instance, wiley O'Briens Fiona escaped AGAIN this morning. She has been moved to yard 9 with the permanent girls, but was found up a tree outside her yard in the main grounds. At least she doesn't go far. Fortunately, they've identified how it is she escaped and so have foiled her plans for the future. There have been other movements too. Cathie Sampson has been moved to Fiona's old spot in yard 3 and Jupiter Cheryl has taken his unit in ICU.


Burraneer Henry
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Three koalas need to be fed in the front yards: Innes Wonga, Kempsey Carolina and Siren Gem, the joey. Gem is snuggled up a tree so I start feeding Kempsey. She wakes up as I pull the stool over and starts to move towards me. A crowd gathers at the fence just as a realise that the syringe is a bit dodgy; I can't exactly vacate my post and seek out another. It's as though the plunger is too small for the cylinder -- it just slips through with no pressure. Kempsey is enough of a dribbler without the syringe dribbling to begin with.

Joy is in yard 9 feeding O'Briens Fiona. It's so strange to see her in the wide expanses of yard 9, and with the old girls. She's seated at the end of gunyah beam, pitching towards Joy. In between drinks, she pokes her tongue in and out, like she's licking the air. Bonny Fire is shambling along a nearby beam; she was up a tree earlier so they haven't mixed formula for her yet. Cathy is watering the kids in yard 9A.

Wiruna Lucky is lounging nakedly on a nearby beam. Joy has moved aside the leaf pots so that the tourists can see; Lucky is completely exposed, but sleepily stretched out on the beam. I start to feed her and she drinks it in without moving. "Don't get up now", I mumble.

Joy is happy to feed Birthday Girl and water in yard 9 so I check on where Danae is at outside. She's watered Wonga and Sampson; I water Henry and Westi. Gem is still up his tree although he stirs; not enough to come down to feed though.

I head round to yard 10 where Danae is trying to work out which is Tractive Golfer and which is Ocean Therese. Surprisingly, both are down on their gunyahs. I suggest that Danae feeds Tom since there's a crowd around the front row. I interrupt Ocean Therese who is eating her leaf. She is happy to take the formula. I'm having no luck with syringes today. The black rubber bit comes off the plunger and embeds inself into the syringe. Danae gives up on feeding Tom who has lost interest in formula and returned to his leaf. Just then Cathy comes into the yard with Warrego Martin in a basket. I open up his yard and she lets him out. He leaps onto the beam and straight up to the highest point of his gunyah. Cathy pops Tom in the basket and takes him off to ICU.

Danae starts feeding Tractive Golfer while I water Oxley Jo then Links Lorna. Bizarrely Lorna is sitting out in the middle of her gunyah and seeminly unbothered by my presence. It's so not like her not to be hiding and eeping weakly into her leaf. Cheyne returns with Tozer Tom swinging between her arms. Cheyne is Chief Koalawrangler and you can tell by her confidence handling the koalas. She deftly plonks Tom on his gunyah; nonplussed, Tom tucks straight into his wet leaf and is immediately in the 'zone'.

Links Lorna From koalawrangler's gallery.

Tozer Tom From koalawrangler's gallery.

I return to the day-room for another syringe to finish feeding Ocean Therese. I look for Cathy and find her in the treatment room with Jo who is taking a photo of a large jar of brownish liquid. Jo gives me a new syringe and chucks the old one in the bin. Back with Therese, she's got a mouthful of leaf, but pauses to finish off the formula.

Danae waters the aviaries while I wash the formula pots. Jo is in the day-room having a late lunch so I take the opportunity to find out about a few of the koalas' conditions. Golf Starr, a koala who was found lethargic and low in a tree, has a poor prognosis as a result of Chlamydia complications. She has paraovarian cysts, thickened bladder and hydro-ureter kidney (ie the ureter has dilated into the kidney). They are waiting on blood results.

We also talk about Oxley Westi who has the exopthalmous eyes in yard 1. Apparently, they don't know what causes it. I comment that they don't seem to have improved, but Jo says that sometimes she pulls them in and sometimes she doesn't. It's an ability some animals have. We also talk about little Ocean Casurina, who I remember feeding some weeks back. Apparently she had a pinky when she was release, so perhaps she's a mother?

There's another admission, Anna Bay Miles, who's been brought in under the auspices of a wildlife trust. I also read in the day-book that there's also a koala called Crestwood Dampier, who I can't see on any of the whiteboards. It turns out she's in home-care with Barb. On a sad note, I see that Treetop Boxer was brought in a few days ago. He was found on the ground with a distended stomach. He was discovered to have cancer and was euthanased! I remember so well my second day when Geoff transferred Boxer to yard 10A before he was released only a few weeks back. At least his pain was put to an end.

Before I go, Cathy shows me and Danae how to prepare a rescue basket. It contains a pillow sealed in a garbage bag, in case they pee. You cover that in two towels and then fold another two towels length-ways so that it lines the edge of the basket cocoon-style. Finally, you insert a rolled-up towel in the centre that mimicks a "tree" for them to hold on to. Aw.

Click here to view more of today's koala hospital photos.