Bonny Hills sweetheart pregnant to koala love rat!

The Mum Bonny Fire From broken_puzzle's gallery.

The alleged love rat Dad Roto Randy From broken_puzzle's gallery.

First we thought she WAS pregnant, then we thought she wasn't...but, now, thanks to some indisputable evidence caught on camera this week, we're positive that long-time hospital resident Bonny Fire is officially "in the family way", "with pinkie" or "up the pouch"! And the father is no less than that love rat extraordinaire, Roto Randy.

Last week, Bonny Fire was enjoying a manicure and pedicure courtesy of Cheyne, the hospital supervisor, and Jo, a visiting veterinary science researcher from Sydney uni (here to continue her work on how best to treat chlamydia in our koalas). Bonny's nail beds were badly damaged during the bush fires that brought her to us from Bonny Hills in 2001 (which you can see in her photo above); so Bonny comes in for the occasional nail clipping (and a complimentary French polish). Actually, technically her nails were being dremelled (ground down).

So Bonny was on the treatment room table for this routine procedure. She was anaesthetised using gas rather than injectable sedation, which was quite fortuitous since the former is much safer for pregnant koalas. At this point, it was not known that Bonny was pregnant, then suddenly -- surprise, wiggly pouch!

Wiggly pouch action caught on film (courtesy of Jo)!

Bonny's head is off camera to the left and her legs to the right. When a koala is upright, the pouch entrance runs vertically down the body. So in this footage, the pouch entrance is the barely visible "seam" that runs horizontally on the left of the shot. Above this, there is clear "pouch action" going on! Jo and Cheyne didn't look inside because the pouch opening was really tight (with an opening only about the size of a twenty cent piece) and the koala can lose her baby if disturbed.

At this stage, the joey is an unfurred pinkie weighing approximately 35 grams and still attached to its mother's teat. We won't be seeing any sign of it outside the pouch for a good three months. Even then probably it will only be a limb here and there; it will be 6-8 months before the joey fully braves the outside world and takes to riding on Bonny's back. It is likely that Bonny conceived in November 2007 when Roto Randy, the wild male koala who lives in the nature reserve near Roto House, made his unscheduled visit to yard 9 one fine Spring night.

Bonny's last pregnancy at the hospital was also the result of a midnight tryst with a male koala, this time back in December 2004. Crestwood Ryan was a fellow patient who obviously wasn't that sick since he managed to scale a fence in order to whisper sweet nothings to Bonny Fire.

Bonny Ash was the result in 2005. She remains one of the most popular adoptions in the hospital's Adopt a Wild Koala program, although she is probably having young ones of her own out there in the wild by now.

Roto Randy chasing Abigail (with joey on back) IX
From broken_puzzle's gallery.
Roto Randy has been hanging around the hospital grounds since at least October 2007 when he was sighted, stalking the female patients and residents for a bit of nooky. There were a couple of occasions when Randy made full-scale advances towards Roto Abigail, the female koala also living in the hospital grounds, despite her clearly being burdened with a dependent joey. Abigail did all she could to discourage his overtures, and a couple of times hospital staff had to step in to move Randy along (and so prevent Abigail's joey from going splat!). Hitting on a lady with a baby... Roto Randy, you're a class act!

Then, just the other week, Randy was next setting his sights on the elderly Birthday Girl. She came within his reach during her recent bionic-koala climbing spree. Randy was definitely up for it -- trumpeting out his mating call across yard 9.

Roto Randy is truly a koala love rat! He has already demonstrated all the tendencies of a deadbeat dad. Fortunately, koalas aren't very social and don't tend to hang around in family groups. The males and females come together for mating, otherwise they're on their own, unless a mother is caring for a joey.

In truth, of course, Roto Randy is not really behaving badly at all. It was mating season after all, and Randy was simply following his instincts, which naturally result in propagating the species. And we're all for MORE joeys (and hence koalas). It just makes you realise that koalas are not a "how's about dinner and a movie, then maybe later...?" kind of species. Then again, few are.

***
So there I was, just the other day, waxing lyrical about the recent glut of joeys (well, four) that we've been enjoying at the hospital. I say "enjoying", although it's a highly mixed blessing since at least two of the joeys came to us as a result of the death of their mothers (Noah's mother was hit by a car, and Holly's mother had to be euthanased). The other two were either orphaned or abandoned.

At least with Bonny jnr on the way, there's nothing but positives, since Bonny is alive and well, if a little long in the tooth. I had suggested in a recent post that perhaps Bonny would prefer to enjoy her retirement without another little anklebiter around. But, after surviving a bushfire and one unplanned pregancy, the old girl's got chutzpah, I'll give her that!

As for us at the hospital, our joey cup runneth over!

More photos of Bonny Fire. More photos of Roto Randy.

Christmas among the gumtrees

Deb feeding Warrego Martin
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It was a quiet Christmas this year, with no family in town, so we volunteered to work on Christmas morning. There were supposed to be a few of the usual volunteers away so it seemed like a nice thing to do, and an uplifting way to start the day.

The weather is glorious; clear and bright and not at all humid. We spray ourselves liberally with Aeroguard and headed into to what Warrego Martin is up to. Deb drags up a stool and starts feeding him. He seems a happy chappy these days. His pale fur always gives him a healthy look (although that is misleading since it's just his natural fur colour). We check him for ticks while Deb feeds him, taking care to avoid his eager grabs for her arm.

Next is Regatta Lanaye with her cloudy eyes. She's a quiet sort, keeps out of your way while you prepare her leaf. With two of us working we finished the yards in no time and decided to visit the other koalas.

Bonny Fire
From koalawrangler's gallery.

We went into yard 9 and helped finishing the raking and leaf gathering. Bonny Fire was high in her tree. There's a rather exciting rumour going around regarding Bonny. You may recall her midnight rendezvous with the studly Mr Roto Randy some weeks ago. Randy was found in yard 9 one morning, having spent the night there. Bonny had rather a dreamy look on her face, Birthday Girl wasn't saying a word and, well, Wiruna Lucky says she didn't see anything. But there's every chance that Bonny *may* be "with pinkie"! Some vollies have noticed her getting rather thick around the middle so we're all crossing our fingers that it's a thickening pouch not midriff bulge. Of course, we don't encourage those sort of shenanigans, this being a hospital after all. But what goes on between consenting koalas during the middle of the night is secret koala business and not to be questioned by us humans.

On the topic, I found an interesting video on YouTube recently. It shows a male and a female koala performing their mating calls to one another (not sure where it takes place). The male bellow is one we're used to hearing around here; the female "eeee eeee" cry, I've heard less often. Check it out:


Lastly, we pop over to see Oxley Denise. She has assumed the usual position for her: high in the spokes of her umbrella.


Oxley Denise
From koalawrangler's gallery.
We notice that Tractive Golfer has come down and is nibbling away at his leaf. He hasn't been fed his formula yet since he was high in the sky earlier. It's another opportunity for Deb to take a crack at koala-feeding.


Deb feeding Tractive Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Click here to view more of today's koala hospital snaps.

Romance at Roto House

Roto Randy has Abigail & joey out on a limb!
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Apologies koala fans, for my recent blog absence. Given my unknown whereabouts, you'd be forgiven for thinking I might have been out in the back of beyond cavorting with Aussie Mick...

There's a little story I've been meaning to share for a while now, one that's very close to home. The koala hospital exists alongside the restored Victorian homestead Roto House, on the grounds of the Macquarie Nature Reserve, a lovely clutch of natural bushland that is also home to a couple of wild koalas.

One such fellow is Roto Randy whom readers may recall from his frequent endeavours to visit our female patients in the outside yards. Recently, Randy was found in yard 9 and is presumed to have had his wicked way with Bonny Fire. Bonny already got pregnant from an unexpected koala visitor some years ago.

It is mating season, after all, and a koala's gotta do what a koala's gotta do.

Readers may also recall another koala we've been watching with interest: Roto Abigail, a female koala originally with a pinkie (unfurred joey) but whose joey has grown to a good size and now rides about on its mother's back like a caboose. It's always a pleasure to see them out in the grounds. It's not such a pleasure seeing Randy in hot pursuit, which is exactly how we found them recently.

The action takes place behind the koala hospital shop. Abigail and joey are up a lush tall gum tree minding their own business when someone spots Roto Randy climbing up the tree after her... Abigail, who already has her hands full with one youngster, is probably not too interested in getting up the duff with another just yet. Roto Randy has other plans. As Randy makes his way up the main trunk, Abigail moves higher up the tree to get away from him.

As Randy moves closer, Abigail retreat along a branch. Now Randy has her cornered. There's really no way out for her now. All she can do is back further along her branch.

By now, the cavorting koalas have gathered a crowd keenly watching the action. Randy is getting closer and closer to Abigail and she is manoeuvring around the spindly branches trying to keep her joey on-board while keeping Randy at bay.

At one point, it looks like the joey is going to tumble off and crowd utters a joint "oooh!". Joeys are occasionally orphaned this way -- they can be thrown off or separated from their mothers during mating and don't find their way back. Chris, one of the leaf collectors and rescuers comments that a resident once reported finding a joey asleep in her laundry. The mother left the joey on the washing machine during mating and returned for it afterwards.

Randy is just in grabbing distance of Abigail and suddenly the joey comes off! Poor Abigail! She's looking out for junior while deflecting advances from Randy.

It's then that we decide something needs to be done. It's not the first time Randy's been given the heave-ho to allow Abigail some breathing room. You can see film footage of this daring capture below.

Chris reverses the rescue truck under the tree and climbs aboard the upper cage. He wields a very long rescue pole with a cloth or two dangling from the end. The pole itself doesn't need to touch the koala -- it's the dangling cloths and the end that cause the koala to take flight and descend the tree.

It's never an exact science and Randy starts to descend at first, but then makes a bolt upwards again. Peter grabs a second pole and manoeuvres it from the ground to give Randy less opportunities to ascend.

Emma is waiting at the bottom of the tree with a bag. She manages to grab Randy's legs, at which point I ditch the camera and tear over to thrown a bag over his head. There are three of us at the bottom but we finally get him in the bag.

Our hearts are racing as we carry Randy in a bag to the far end of Macquarie Nature Reserve. An American lady accompanies us and asks what it was that Randy wanted with Abigail. I'd forgotten that "Randy" is a self-evident name amongst Australians/Brits, but it's connotations of, well, amorousness, did not make it across the Atlantic. Well, Randy certainly didn't want to take a Abigail to dinner and a movie...not without a babysitter anyway.

Poor old Randy. He found himself let out of the bag under a completely different tree and nowhere near that cute female koala he was after. Oh well, he's always got night-time to look forward to. And what he and Abigail get up to then, well, we'll never know.

The great koala chase

Tawny Frogmouth and chick in yard 9
From koalawrangler's gallery.
No, when I left the koala hospital this afternoon I didn't expect I'd be chasing a koala down Pacific Drive before I made it home.

Cheyne asked me to come in to the hospital this arvo to put my slide-wench skills to good use. She is giving a presentation next week on the work we do at the koala hospital, and the finer details of PowerPoint were eluding her.

So after spending a couple of hours animating text and cropping some pretty gruesome photos of dog attacks and motor vehicle accidents, I was glad to get out amongst the well-tended, luckier koalas in our care.

Three Dutch ladies outside Perks Chris's yard beckoned to me as I locked up. They were having trouble picking out our old girls in yard 9. I was happy to give them an impromptu tour along the perimeter of the yards. Birthday Girl was curled up on the gunyah, but I couldn't see Bonny up her usual tree. I thought she might have gone into hiding in case Roto Randy was feeling the love again (as he did the other night when he broke into yard 9 and, we suspect, had his wicked way with her). But we walked north around yard 9 and could see Bonny curled up on the gunyah on the other side.

The cute little tawny frogmouth mother was still there with her chick, pretending to be a tree branch. Wiruna Lucky seemed to be the only koala awake and snuffling her leaf. Around in yard 10, Westport Lily was tucked up in the spines of her umbrella.

Little did I know that these weren't the last koalas I would see today!

Since it was still light, I drove home via the coast road rather than Lord Street. I had passed Flynn's Beach shops when I saw a couple walking a huge dog, something like a cross between a wolf and a shetland pony. They'd come to a stop by a large tree at the side of the road, where, to my complete shock, there sat a koala. As I sped by, it looked peculiarly like the koala and the dog were having a conversation (fortunately the dog was on a tight leash).

I immediately pulled over and jumped out of the car, not sure what I was going to do when I got out. Did I have a towel in the car if I needed to pick the koala up, should something happen? I had no chance to find out as, the koala decided he'd had enough with talking to the dog and bounded headlong into the road, Pacific Drive. I only had enough time to recognise that the koala had an orange tag in its ear (so was a former hospital patient).

My gut response was to fling myself into the traffic (not really TRAFFIC, there were a few cars coming on either side). I waved my hands frantically at the cars going south and then threw myself in the way of cars approaching north. Fortunately, everyone stopped and our plucky koala bounded off down Leanda street headed for who-knows-where.

Of course, I went after it. I felt a bit like Alice following her white rabbit down the rabbit hole. I was also starting to wonder which piece of clothing--my t-shirt or my pants (the wraparound Thai fisherman variety)--would be the least offensive garment to remove if I needed to use them to pick up the koala. Yes, this is the kind of madness that goes through the mind of a koalawrangler when hot on the heels of a scampering koala. Of course, what I was going to do with the koala when I got it was a another matter.

I saw a guy approaching at a distance with a dog--I squawked at him, "Is your dog on a leash?! I've got a koala here!". Naturally.

My koala didn't seem to know where it was going but stopped and paused on someone's front lawn before heading off into their side yard. As a I tramped through the backyards of Leanda Street, I realised I was harbouring the illogical sense that this was somehow a lost koala--probably because it had an ear-tag and I wasn't used to seeing tagged koalas outside the hospital. It somehow felt that this koala was AWOL from yard 10 or something. It wasn't of course, nor did there look to be anything wrong with it. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It seemed to me that I would need help so I got the koala hospital on the line. John answered and I talked (or more like, squawked) my way through the situation. The koala seemed to have worked its way into a corner. The side yard backed onto two other yards where three fences met at a point, two metal and one wood. Amazingly, the koala climbed the wooden fence and along the metal fence.

It was beyond my help now.

A guy in the backyard next door was cracking open a beer. I blurted out from the shrubbery, "do you have a dog?". I think looking at horrible photos of koala dog-attack victims all afternoon had unsettled me. The bloke wandered over to the fence as I watched the koala's dappled behind disappear up the fence line away from me.

"Oh don't worry", he told me. "He's usually here".

Ohhhh. So I'd just been stalking someone's very own backyard koala???

Just then, the koala in question sat back on his haunches and let out a loud koala mating drawl--definitely a male. If he was a gorilla, he'd probably have been beating on his chest about now.

"There are koala trees just here", the man continued, like having a koala in his backyard was the most natural thing in the world. Behind me, I heard a miaow. A calico cat was looking at me quizzically as if to say, "what are doing in my owner's rose bushes?". It seems like I was the only entity who was concerned about the koala being there.

So I headed home, living to wrangle another day!

A bagful o' Dave

Chisholm Dave, high & dry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Last week, the hospital yards seemed chockful of koalas and most of the gunyahs bristled with leaf. The volume of koalas tends to coincide with the warmer weather when koalas are on the move seeking out other koalas for mating. This puts them in unwanted path of dogs and cars as they leave their comfortable branches to traverse backyards and urban streets. It's no coincidence that male koala patients have been in the majority lately, as these frisky boys venture out for some summer lovin'.

Remember the marsupial lothario who was pursuing Roto Abigail, the wild koala mum who lives just outside the hospital grounds near Roto House? He's been eyeing up some of our female patients for a while now, so it was decided that Roto Randy, as he's been dubbed, should be relocated to an area with healthy females, not those recovering from motor vehicle accidents, koala flu, and the like. The last thing our girls need is a male grunting and snuffling about the place while they're recuperating.

Lighthouse Barry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Cuddly Ocean Jane is missing from her usual spot in yard 2. She's been given the all-clear and released. Limping Livingstone Clover has also made the trip to Walkabout Wildlife Sanctuary where he'll hopefully help beef up their koala numbers.

Lighthouse Barry has also re-entered the wild, which is a relief, since we could barely keep him on his gunyah once he was transferred outside. He kept climbing up onto his roof and John, Jim and Pete took turns in propping a pole up for him to ease himself down to the ground.

Perks Chris is still doing his border patrol, trotting in regular steps around his yard. Emma's just finished Chris's yard and is starting on the koala in yard 1. The gate to the adjacent yard is open, which is unusual. She points skyward and I train my eyes up the tree in the next door yard.


Perks Chris & Lighthouse Barry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Pacific Highway Vina
From koalawrangler's gallery.

There's a koala unbelievably high up, hugging a thick tree branch and looking for all the world like she's smiling smugly. Emma tells me it's Pacific Highway Vina, which is wonderful! She was so very fragile when she first came in after being hit by a car on the Pacific Highway a few weeks back. When I last saw her in ICU, she could hardly chew and even struggled to take in the liquid formula. Now here she is jumping fences and shimmying up trees -- a sure sign that she's on the mend. The hospital isn't Fort Knox; the outside yards balance the open-air freedom the furry patients crave with a modicum of security measures. Some crafty koalas will inevitably find a way out, but usually only into the next yard, and this doesn't happen very often. Emma replenishes Vina's gunyah with leaf. There'll be a eucalyptus smorgasbord waiting for her should she decide to return to earth.

Flynn Mick
From koalawrangler's gallery.

The outside yards are well in hand so I start on newcomer Cathie Ali in ICU. She's a small female who regards me warily as I enter and start to clean out her unit. She's a clean girl; there's only a small smattering of tiny poo's on the newspaper beneath where she's perched on her gunyah. I start sweeping out the newspaper and sweep up the poo. She's so far down one end of the gunyah that I can easily replace one of her towels. She's a suspected wet bottom, so they're probably waiting on test results to confirm her mode of treatment.

Just then Peter pops his head in to see if I'll join him on a rescue. Two koala sightings have been made within only a few blocks of the hospital. It constantly amazes me how embedded in suburbia our koalas are. The first one is behind a block of flats opposite Flynn's Beach. A shirtless fellow emerges from his apartment to describe how he saw a koala ambling up the driveway with a sore leg. There's a large fence the separates the flats from a clutch of trees. Pete spots the big fellow high in one of these trees and far out of reach of even our longest poles. Unless he voluntarily moves to a more accessible spot, there'll be no getting to him, which is a shame since he obviously needs some medical care.

Chisholm Dave
From koalawrangler's gallery.

We head off to the next koala location. On another suburban street, there's a couple of kids waiting as we arrive. They take us to their front yard swimming pool and there, shivering in a Camelia tree is a very wet koala. Chisholm Dave, as he is to be known, has picked a good tree (for us, not for him). It's very low and with the help of a step ladder, Peter manages to wrestle him off the tree. I'm standing by with a bag and help by pulling and pushing branches out from under Dave's claws so that he eventually tumbles into my outstretched canvas sack. At the last minute, he makes a grab for whatever he can get a hold of and manages to drag down the front of my shirt revealing my bra to all and sundry. I'm just glad it wasn't my skin he found purchase in. I'm past caring about modesty, as long as I've bagged my koala.

I've got my hands stretched out before me holding on tight to the neck of bag. I don't want to rest the koala against myself as they've been known to tear through the bag on occasion. So this koala deadweight is giving my bingo wings a workout. I walk quickly to the car and sit in the back with Dave next to me. We're only a a few streets away so in no time Dave's on the treatment table being towelled off by Peter. John and Jim get to work preparing Dave a new unit with fresh leaf. He looks like a new koala when he gets delivered to his room and sets upon the leaf straight away. The camelia bush obviously wasn't providing must in the way of sustenance.

Pacific Simon
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Keith's brought in another koala that made the mistake of running down the middle of Pacific Drive at 11.30pm last night. Fortunately, and amazingly, he wasn't hurt and Keith looked after him overnight before admitting him to the hospital today. He's a frisky little fellow, only a juvenile judging by his size and seems healthy. He has a very white, clean little bottom, but the towel from his basket is stained red, which unfortunately suggests there may be something wrong internally. Cheyne will have her work cut out for her on Monday with all these new admissions.

Cathie Ali
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I return to Cathie Ali and finish off her unit with some fresh wet leaf. I notice that there's something strange going on with her claws on her front right hand. The claws look like they're split or are shedding an external layer. She's very timid and scurries down the other end of her gunyah with John's help and I finish replacing her towels.

I scan the day book to find out about recent activity in the hospital. I'm saddened to see that Oceanview Terry was brought in DOA. He was one of the successful patients from the university chlamydia drug trials from last year.

Little Oxley Cori is a tiny 440g joey who was found miraculously alive sitting under a tree. He's gone straight into home care with one of our special koala foster mums. Comboyne Ken is another koala in home care. He's from an area about an hour inland from us here at Port Macquarie. He was covered in soot from the local bush fires and is suffering a broken wrist and general poor body condition. Speaking of soot, a recent patient Anna Bay Sooty has been sighted near a youth hostel with her baby Smudge. It's not often we find out that our ex-patients are doing well.

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