Furry golfers find their way home

Ocean Woody
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I mentioned in a previous post that we have been awash with Ocean koalas (geddit?), that is koalas admitted who were found near Ocean Drive, the highway that connects Port Macquarie and Bonny Hills, Lake Cathie and beyond. It zips along at 80km/h, not a very koala-friendly speed, hence the relatively many koalas we get at the hospital who receive the "Ocean" moniker. In the last week or so, we've had Ocean Woody, Ocean Joseph, Ocean Jane and Ocean Golfer in through our doors. Ocean Joseph and Ocean Woody have since been released...not to the highway, of course, but to a nearby safe zone. Hospital staff usually divine a good spot that's not far from where the koala was found, but far enough from trouble, where there's plenty of good koala food and company (for when mating season rolls around again).


Ocean Jane
From koalawrangler's gallery.
There's lots of good release/transfer news today. There were several koalas in ICU that have all been released or transferred to the outside yards. Hamlyn Jack is in yard 1, Ocean Jane is in yard 2 and Jonas Absalom Blinky (phew!) is in yard 3. Livingstone Clover continues to be a little ornery in yard 4 and it's the usual crowd in the joey yard and yard 9. Wiruna Lucky has been bumped back into yard 9 to make way for Anna Bay Lilly Billy in yard 9a. Lucky has pretty much "assumed the position", taking up the exact bit of gunyah that always seemed to favour when she was in yard 9 before.


Ocean Joseph
From koalawrangler's gallery.
I forgot to report earlier that Candelo Cool flew the coop (in a good way) a few weeks ago. Anna Bay Sooty and baby Smudge are back in Anna Bay. Sadly, Sandhill Col, was euthanased. I'm not really surprised--he wasn't an old koala but he looked so haggard and debilitated that sending him to that eucalyptus in the sky was a blessing.

Hamlyn Jack's messy unit From koalawrangler's gallery.

Hamlyn Jack outdoors From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm in yard 1 and 2 today, looking after their newest occupants, Hamlyn Jack and Ocean Jane. Jack seems much more sedate out here. He'd done a bit of a "Morrish Steven" on his indoor unit, trashing the place like a rockstar, so it's good to see him snoozy and calm.

Ocean Jane
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Ocean Jane, on the other hand, is racing around her yard like she's on wheels. It's a far cry from the timid little lamb I fed the other day after she first came in. Right now, she's returned to the gunyah to scurry back and forth like it's a balancing beam. She hasn't been fed yet, so I finish up with Jack and head in there to feed her.

It needs to be taken slow since she's incurred some damage to her palate and has difficulty swallowing. I basically give the syringe a little squeeze, let her lap that up, and give it another little squeeze. It's very slow, but it's a pace that seems to work for her, as she's interested in food but makes a little choking sound if she swallows too much. She manages about two thirds of the pot before she curls up and settles into sleep.

Meanwhile, Amanda asks me if I'll come with her on a release. In fact, not one release, but two! Jonas Absalom Blinky in yard 3 and Ocean Golfer over in yard 10 are the two lucky chappies. Both are to be released to local golf courses where there are plenty of koala food trees and other koalas.

I ask Paul to finish up Jane's unit and I head off in Amanda's car. There are two covered baskets in the back and, being boys, the gamey scent they're excreting is as concetrated as an essential oil. Poo-ey! No wonder Jane was going a bit feral surrounded by three gamey males (Clover, Jack and Blinky).


Jonas Absalom Blinky
From koalawrangler's gallery.
I've got the map and we head for the first golf course. There are yards of rolling turf with golfers tugging their bags and chatting amiably among themselves. The helpful chappy in the clubhouse points us towards a little bridge with a shed on the other side of it. There is a cluster of trees there that look like Melaleuca, a leaf that koalas like. We drive down there and pick out a good tree for our first release-ee, Jonas Absalom Blinky.

Ocean Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Blink is about all he does when we first open his basket. He just sits there and looks around, as though trying to process how he's found himself in this vast open green space. There are several good trees for Blinky to choose from and he tries all of them out. He climbs up one, then down again, climbs another, then down and then back to the original one which he rejects again before comically bounding off to a sheltered clutch of trees and takes off up a...fir tree! Wrong! Fir trees are NOT koala food trees, but fortunately there's a nicholii adjacent to it that he can spring to after we leave.

Ocean Golfer in his new tree
From koalawrangler's gallery.

We continue on to the next golf course, home to Ocean Golfer. We follow a golf cart out to the far reaches of the course. The guys there know just the right spot for our koala, a sweet little junction of the 16th, 17th and 18th holes where there's a group of nice-looking tallowwood. Ocean Golfer knows just what to do and scurries up a tree with several finger-like branches. The golfing staff helping us comment on how much better his bottom looks. Golfer's fur is still a telltale orange-brown; it takes time for wet-bottom discoloration to grow out. They tell us that there are a few koalas around here, so that bodes well for Golfer to go forth and bring some more little caddies into the world.

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

Sandhill Col

Golfer is giving off a particularly gamey scent right now and I notice that his scent gland, the furry cleft in his chest, is glistening. I wonder if that’s pure parfum du koala seeping out of there?

Tractive Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Amanda must be psychic. She's written me up for yard 10, which is just where I'd like to be. I haven't wrangled up there for about six weeks. I take Tractive Golfer’s feed pot and set off, grabbing some newly sharpened clippers from the tool shed on the way. Ocean Golfer is the first koala I see as I enter the yard. He’s the one Tractive was giving a hard time when he was in yard 10z. He seems to mind less now that Ocean is on the periphery. Tractive is down on his gunyah and lets me give him a feed. There’s nothing more serene than feeding one of these animals in the morning sunlight with only the birdsong in your ears. Golfer is giving off a particularly gamey scent right now and I notice that his scent gland, the furry cleft in his chest, is glistening. I wonder if that’s pure parfum du koala seeping out of there?

Ocean Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It’s getting confusing with all the golfers in here. There are also a number of “Oceans” at the hospital too, courtesy of Ocean Drive, a main road nearby. Cheyne comes in to give Ocean Golfer some medication. He looks like he’s doing well in here. He’s a round little fellow who clearly likes his food. I hear him rustling around in his leaf a bit, searching out a choice bit of yesterday’s leaf.

I mention to Cheyne that I noticed our old friend Links Lorna had been in the hospital during the week. She was the koala I first heard make an “eeping” noise whenever she was a bit miffed. Unfortunately, she had become debilitated since her release, losing two kilos which is a significant amount for a koala of Lorna’s size. Cheyne said she looked just like O’Briens Fiona had—scrawny and unwell—before they decided it would be best to euthanase her. Now that I’ve been a koalawrangler for over six months, I’m more aware of those koalas I’ve met with early on coming in for repeat visits. It’s the nature of living with what they call an urban koala population. Having said that, we get older koalas in who’ve gone through most of their lives in Port Macquarie without ever needing to pay us a visit.

Sandhill Col
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Sandhill Col is another koala who could use some more meat on his bones. He’s not an old koala but he has a grizzled look about him that makes him seem older than his years. He suffers from conjunctivitis and has recently been moved outside. His fur is darker than most, which is often a barometer on illness, similar to the way Anna Bay Miles’s used to be before he made a 180 degree improvement and lighter patches started coming through. Like all the koalas that graduate to the outdoors, Col looks a lot happier in the sunlight. He’s also eating up his leaf so I make sure to prepare him some juicy big bunches.

Anna Bay Lil (or Bill)
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Jackie is just finishing off ICU. There is a new little joey in ICU who’s a real cutie (aren’t they all?). At present, it’s unsure whether Anna Bay Lil is Lil or Bill until we get definitive tests back. S/he is snuggled in the leaf when I peer in. He’s being strictly dehumanised to prepare him for life in the wild again.

One-eyed Herschel Grady and Hamlyn Jack with conjunctivitis are both still in ICU. There’s a newcomer, a motor vehicle accident victim. Ocean Jane was hit by a car on Ocean Drive. The poor chap who hit her put her straight in his car and brought her in to the hospital, making sure to visit her again that afternoon. Amanda asks me to feed her and as I enter she turns the sweetest face towards me. She has a bit of a mucous problem, her right nostril gummed up with snot. She has difficulty swallowing so I ease the syringe into her mouth and take it slow. She’s interested enough, but can only lap slowly. She drinks more than three quarters of the pot in this fashion until she produces a snorty gargle in her throat signals she wants no more.

Ocean Jane
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I promise Jackie I’ll mop ICU when she’s done and flick through the day book while I’m waiting. Barton Glen has been released! I feel a special simpatico for the ones I’ve wrangled up close. Good for Barton Glen.

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

From chocolate koalas to the real thing

I've been overseas for a couple of weeks so the closest I've come to koalas has been the chocolate-filled kind we scoffed plenty of in Japan. The biscuits were ubiquitous at train station shops so we stocked up on them for long rides on shinkansen. One time I couldn't see them at the counter so I flapped my hands at my ears while saying "koala" in my best Japanese accent. Amazingly, the lady knew exactly what I meant. Saying "koala" alone would probably have sufficed, but then I wouldn't have given all those other people on the train platform a demonstration of a koalawrangler on holiday. (The bikkies are called Koala's March, by the way,and each packet contains up to 17 different koala designs. Importantly, they donate part of their profits to the Australian Koala Foundation).

Koala biscuits
From koalawrangler’s gallery.

Now I'm back at the Koala Hospital with the real, inedible kind of koala, and I realise how much I've missed them! There have been visits from old koala patients since I've been gone, some positive, some not so positive: Newport Bridge Gloria, one of the koalas successfully treated under the Sydney University drug trials, was picked up wandering around an auto parts place near the highway. She was checked out and returned to a safe, more koala-friendly place. Calwalla Bill was also brought in for a check-up. He's the one who gave one of the vollies a swipe in ICU when he was last in. He's one of those koalas with a slightly grubby-coloured bottom. The hospital sometimes gets calls about about him from savvy Port Macquarie residents who know a bit about wet-bottom and think they've come across a new sufferer. He turned out to be fine and was sent on his way.

Other koalas revisiting us didn't fare so well. Innes Wonga, who had a gammy knee like our current resident Livingstone Clover, was found limping and died on arrival, as did Koalasaurus Inches. Little Cathie John, one of the joeys being raised by her dedicated homecare Mum also passed away. Before I went away, Judy told me that he had developed an infection and was being seen to by the vet. When I saw that his name was off the homecare board, I feared that he might not have pulled through. A part of the problem was that never quite There are more optimistic stories too: Oxley Sooney came in with a limp, was treated and released. Hastings Teal was admitted and then relocated to a safer area.

Candelo Cool
From broken_puzzle's gallery.

Candelo Cool's still with us. She had a return to ICU for a bit because of heavy rains (where Emma caught her lounging around on her gunyah!), but now she's back outside in the sunshine in yard 10. Ocean Golfer, the other Golfer's (Tractive) masculine competition, is still recovering in yard 10.

The flamboyantly named one-eyed Herschel Grady is the current wet-bottom in ICU. Barton Glen is in ICU with conjunctivitis. There's also Jonas Absalom Blinky who has conjunctivitis and who tumbled into a residential swimming pool.

Of course, the highlight of the hospital right now is Anna Bay Sooty who has newfound celebrity status. When Sooty came to us, she was placed in an outdoor aviary where she proved to be very skittish. She shied away from human contact, usually burying herself in her leaf when handlers were cleaning her unit. We soon discovered that Sooty was hiding more than herself away; she was also hiding a rather special secret. She was carrying a pinkie, the name given to an unfurred joey that lives in its mother’s pouch until it matures and is ready to face the world.

Anna Bay Sooty with poking joey paw
From koalawrangler’s gallery.

Sooty gradually got more used to being in hospital care, submitting to special eye ointments and medication that the hospital staff were using to treat Sooty’s eye complaint. Sometimes one way of treating conjunctivitis in koalas is to operate to remove the third eyelid. There is a special risk attached to this when the koala is carrying a pinkie since the anaesthetic used in the operation may cause the mother to reject the baby. If Sooty rejected her pinkie from the pouch, there is a chance it could die. The hospital is lucky enough to have a humidicrib which can be used to keep pinkies warm in the event of this, but this is no substitute for its own mother’s pouch. And I have it on good authority (Cheyne)that koala pinkies are very difficult to hand-raise.

Luckily, the pinkie remained where it was. Soon, hospital staff were delighted to see the size of Sooty’s pouch increasing and even some movement beneath her fur. Today, we were lucky enough to see a miniature koala hand poking out!

Anna Bay Sooty's joey
From broken_puzzle's gallery.
Over the last few weeks, visitors and vollies alike have been treated to the incomparable joy of seeing the now furred joey’s little face protruding from its mother’s pouch blinking up at the delighted, smiling human faces. It’s a joy having see this young one graduate from hidden pinkie to visible joey in such a seemingly short time. (The joey looks like it's wearing a fur-lined anorak in this photo, like Kenny from South Park!)


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