KoalaWhere?

My KoalaWhere arrived today. It's a small toy koala dressed in an aviator outfit and proceeds from the sale of each KoalaWhere go to support the Australian Koala Foundation.

The idea is that you take KoalaWhere with you when you go on holidays, particularly overseas, and then you include your KoalaWhere in your photos. (I can imagine going quite overboard with this.) You then upload your photos to the KoalaWhere online KoalaAlbums. Here is a KoalaWhere holidaying in Patagonia. Here's another at the Great Wall of China. Here's another one in Vanuatu. There's even one taken at the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie with our dearly departed Cloudie!

You can buy your own KoalaWhere online at www.savethekoala.com.

I've named ours Lighthouse Steffi in honour of Settlement Point Steffi, a little joey we had at the koala hospital earlier in the year who was sadly past saving.

Click here to view more of today's KoalaWhere snaps of Lighthouse Steffi.

When nice joeys turn naughty

Judy deftly plucks him from the gunyah, but Woody puts up a struggle, squeaking and nibbling on her arm. Vina grabs his feet and the two of them make for the staff-room with the naughty joey dangling between them.

Lady Nelson Woody
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm doing Tuesday arvo -- another day I've not done before. Vina is team leader and is lovely and welcoming. In fact, she's quite hands-off, which is great now that I know the ropes here better.

I suggest that I go off to yard 10 to water some leaf. I fill Tractive Golfer's and Ocean Therese's leaf pots and wet their leaf. Ocean Therese is high in her tree which is good news: they're trying to get her muscles used to climbing again. I decide not to disturb the sleeping koalas on the front row by watering their leaf yet; it's better to wait until the crowd comes by so that they can see the koalas waking up.

I see that there's a koala in yard 2, the corner yard near the entrance. Back in the staff-room, I'm disappointed to see on the board that it's O'Briens Fiona. She was the feisty one in ICU who was always trying to escape. Fiona was released a short time ago but is back in as she's sadly underweight. She was found low in a tree: that may mean that she's not getting around to the good leaf. They're fattening her up again with formula. It worries me that koalas put back in the wild are struggling to do what comes naturally.


Vina suggests I feed Kempsey Carolina. She's in a great position near the front of the gunyah facing the crowd. I wait till the guide leads them around to us before I start feeding. Kempsey is leaning out of the gunyah towards me, looking beseechingly for food. She's slopping her feed everywhere as usual so I wipe her fuzzy lip with a washer. Then it's a dash to the kitchen to grab the feeds for yard 9. Wiruna Lucky is in a prime position for the tourists to see her feed.

The group moves on and I start on Bonny Fire who's reaching out her paws to get formula. I notice that Barb is over in the joey yard. She comes in to yard 9 and tells me some very sad news: little Settlement Point Steffi has had to be euthanased. I had a dreadful feeling that might happen, but was holding out hope that it wouldn't. Barb says she was too near death to not put her out of her misery. The poor little angel. Barb goes to check on her other troubled little baby, Links VTR, who is hesitant about climbing after the nasty fall from the tree last year that dented his nose.

I feed Birthday Girl and finish watering the yard. Vina is in the joey yard checking Siren Gem, who was sleeping down on the gunyah for a change, for ticks. I can hear her eeping in protest as Vina frisks her. She's found four ticks already, she tells me.

Suddenly we're joined by Lady Nelson Woody (a male, despite the name). He looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, but Woody's the naughty bullyboy joey who was tormenting Siren Gem the other day.


No sooner is he down by Gem's side than he starts biting him again. Naughty little monkey! Vina goes to grab Woody to separate them and we call Judy over to witness the naughtiness first hand. Judy decides it's time Woody gets weighed but he takes off up the tree out of reach. Because he can.


Soon enough though, he bounds back down the tree and onto the roof. He's charging about and at one point he looks like he may leap off the edge and onto my head. It's hard to know what he'll do!

It's like he's determined to come down and torment Gem, even if it means being captured for it. Judy deftly plucks him from the gunyah, but Woody puts up a struggle, squeaking and nibbling on her arm. Vina grabs his feet and the two of them make for the staff-room with the naughty joey dangling between them. I ask if they need a bag and whip one off the clothesline as we're passing. They pop him in.

On the scales he's over 4 kilos. He only needs to be 3.5 kilos for release. Judy decides to keep him in an ICU unit overnight for release the next day. I offer to cut up leaf from the leaf shed. Judy says I can use the leaf that was destined for Settlement Point Steffi. How sad!

Outside, I deftly cut up two bunches of leaf and bring them into the unit. Judy deposits Woody into the dark room. He looks quite disoriented. I tell him he's in isolation for being a naughty little koala. An agro-ala.

I learned something new today -- Oxley Westi doesn't have a pinky after all. It's just a fold in her pouch. At least her eyes are improving, even if she's not a mother.

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

Innes Wonga

Kempsey is perched out in the middle of her gunyah looking rather exposed without any leaf around her. The recycled pot is down one end and she's sitting in the middle of the beam like a fuzzy, squat tightrope walker.

Innes Wonga
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Peter asked me to come in today, Sunday. I haven't worked Sunday mornings before and I find it has a different vibe to other days. Since I've become a 'regular' (one of the koalarati, perhaps?), I find myself getting things done in record time (assuming I don't have ticks to mark up, which involves lots of doubletracking to and from the dayroom).

Cheryle, who I met at koala rescue training, is allocated to yard 9; Emma whose koala pics I discovered on Flickr is working in the ICU.

There's a guy called Ian doing Kempsey Carolina and the joeys. I've got Innes Wonga and Henry (who's way up his tree). I haven't fed Wonga before, he's the fellow with the arthritic left knee. Anne identifies with Wonga's ailment; she's got an arthritic left knee too.

Wonga must be enjoying her food because they're is a TONNE of poop around her gunyah. I recall Ros having trouble feeding him the other day, but today he drinks it all up like a good little bear. I rake and scoop poop in Wonga's and Henry's yards and make up a new recycled pot from their previous day's leaf. I check in to see how joeys are faring -- they're up in the tree but on adjacent branches so perhaps they've made up after their spat on Friday.

Macquarie Peter From koalawrangler's gallery.

Macquarie Peter From koalawrangler's gallery.

I suggest to Peter that I might go and help Jim in yard 10; it's got six koalas now which is too much for one person. Jim welcomes the help. He says when he arrived the koalas seemed sleepy, like they'd had a big night. I notice they've all got big outdoor umbrellas over their gunyahs to give them additional shelter. They koalas all look damp as it rained heavily in the night and the umbrellas aren't waterproof. They all appear to have woken up now, except Links Lorna who's burrowed into her leaf. Warrego Martin and Macquarie Peter are quite frisky, jumping off their gunyahs and prowling around the perimeters of their yards.

Chris arrives with the leaf so I go to prepare Wonga and Henry's bundles. There's always a rush for the good cutters -- I prefer the smaller ones with the orange handles as they're easier to wield. I'm becoming a dab hand at leaf cutting now.

Once I've finished with Wonga and Henry I notice that Poor Kempsey is perched out in the middle of her gunyah looking rather exposed without any leaf around her. The recycled pot is down one end and she's sitting in the middle of the beam like a fuzzy, squat tightrope walker. I generally try to leave the pot closest to the koala intact so as to disrupt them as little as possible. So, I decide to replenish Kempsey's leaf and then go back to yard 10 to help Jim. I fix Therese's leaf and then head into ICU. There are three types of leaf today; Chris is going back to get a fourth. The koalas need a bit of choice as this is the usual way they feed -- seeking out different types of desirable leaf.

Innes Tony
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Chris's second leaf trip is delayed when Chris and Ellen are dispatched on a rescue go out on rescue. When they return, they've brought a big male in a bag. He was found at the corner of Major Innes and Ruins Way. They call him Innes Tony. He barks.

I talk to Barb who's in the treatment room. Her little Steffi has now developed massive bruising on her entire front, no doubt from her fall. Judy tells me about her little joey, Cathie John, who has wet bottom, which is rare in joeys. The vet says he might have contracted it from the mother's pap, which is unusual.

We talk about koala intelligence and agree that they are intelligent about the things they need to be. Unfortunately, koalas don't see dogs as a threat. That must be why they accept us humans around them. It takes a lot for them to lash out.

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

Settlement Point Steffi

The joeys are both awake and staring down at me from their lofty pedestals like fluffy-earred gargoyles. I love their icy superiority! They look down on us like so many ants scurrying about doing their bidding.

Siren Gem & Lady Nelson Woody
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Like the koala-mad person that I've become, I'm doing a double-shift today. I'm usually scheduled to do Friday mornings, but Lorna called and asked if I'd do the arvo as well. I simply can't refuse the little furry-faced ones...oh, and the koalas (yuk, yuk).

Barb's mixing up formula as I arrive. I ask her about the call-out from Sunday arvo: a koala had been chased up a palm tree by a dog. When Barb went out to check, there were too many smaller trees in the way; she couldn't get close enough to see if the koala was in need of help. Being a palm tree, the koala wouldn't be sticking around.

Barb assigns me Kempsey Carolina and yard 6, where the youngest remaining joeys (Siren Gem and Lady Nelson Woody) reside. Normally, Kempsey is 'reserved' for Andrew, but he's not coming in today.

With formula pot in one hand, I climb up on a stool to start feeding Kempsey, but then reel back suddenly. On the leaf right in front of her face (and mine) is a spider the size of a volkswagon. It's lucky Kempsey is blind as I proceed, for the next few minutes, to flail a rake madly right in front of her face, trying to flick the spider off the leaf. It drops to the ground and curls up in a sort of commando somersault fashion. (The spider not the koala.) I squash it with the heel of my blunnie.

Rain is threatening. There are a few drops and finally the heavens open up and give the ground a good drenching. I suggest to Anne that we get the towels off the line. She gives a look over her shoulder and predicts that it'll soon be fine, but I, the city-girl, start tearing the damp towels off in a frenzy of pegs and face-washers. I put a pile in the dryer, but, sure enough, the shower passes and the sun comes out. I hang the towels back on the line, wasting a good 15 minutes with the whole process.

The leaf isn't ready yet so I go to prepare the joey yard. The joeys are both awake and staring down at me from their lofty pedestals like fluffy-earred gargoyles. I love their icy superiority! They look down on us like so many ants scurrying about doing their bidding.

Kempsey is usually in the middle of her gunyah where there is leaf cover, or nestled in one of the forks at the end closest to the ICU. For some reason she's taken herself down the opposite end where there's no leaf and has perched on edge, facing out as though preparing to launch herself off the gunyah. I immediately think of Kate Winslet in Titanic.


Kempsey Carolina
From koalawrangler's gallery.
There's a few people in today so not much for me to do in the ICU. Plus there are two or three vacancies in here, what with several of the boys (Macquarie Peter, Tozer Tom and Warrego Martin) having been transferred to yard 10. So all I do is help Geoff out with Bellevue Bill's leaf. (His name always reminds me of that serial killer in Silence of the Lambs. What was it? That's right, Buffalo Bill.)

Barb arrives back with her new little joey. Siren Gem has just been discharged from her place and into yard 6 with Lady Nelson Woody. But the same day, she and Judy were called out to a holiday village near Settlement Point to pick up another one. The holiday-makers had been enjoying frequent sightings of what they thought was a small koala in the trees surrounding the village. Then, on Tuesday, the koala was seen lying flat on her face in the rain at the bottom of a tree. The people who reported it were out-of-towners so didn't realise that a small koala might actually be an abandoned joey which would require aid. Had they known to call when they had first seen her, she might have been saved the ordeal that followed.

Settlement Point Steffi
From koalawrangler's gallery.

When Barb and Jude got there, they were sure she was dead. She was lying flat with her arms splayed out at her sides. She was drenched to the skin after the heavy overnight rains and barely alive. They took her to Judy's, towelled her off and dried her with a hair-dryer. Since Judy already had a joey, Barb took her in at her place. She was named Settlement Point Steffi.

I look forward to Steffi's getting past her present troubles, to be well enough to join the joeys in yard 6 and come to look down on me with the same blend of surliness and complacency.

Over morning tea I flick through the daybook. I see that Elizabeth Noddy has been released. Another little joey was released with Belah Irwin, Oxley Lucky -- one that Judy raised. They don't treat joeys as having a home-range like grown koalas. They usually just release them to a safe area, and typically with another joey in a sort of buddy system.

I see that Tasman Rose was dispatched to the heavenly gumtree. She was the little female koala brought in the same day as Sandfly Jye. She wouldn't take the clear formula but wouldn't resist me either. She just sat there and let me squirt the liquid at her mouth, delicately lapping at it from time to time. I ask one of the vets what happened to her. Apparently, she had a mammarian tumour. Despite her size, she was quite old. I suppose it's good that she lived a long life then, and was saved from a painful death.

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