Rest in peace, Wiruna Lucky

Wiruna Lucky was a beautiful old koala who shared the "old girls' yard", yard 9, with Bonny Fire, Birthday Girl (until recently) and dear Cloudie.

Wiruna Lucky
From broken_puzzle's gallery.

Like Cloud, she seemed to be a fixture in the place. As an elderly koala needing extra nutrition and hydration, she was fed formula twice a day, which sometimes meant locating her in the vast area of yard 9. You see, Lucky was a bit of a wanderer. She wouldn't gallop around the perimeter of the yard like she wanted to get out, but rather, would make her visits to various spots in the place, such as Perch Miracle's gravestone or the various trees that studded the yard.

This is the last footage I took of Lucky as she traversed yard 9.

Trish chats to Wiruna Lucky
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Lucky was almost entirely blind so perhaps she liked travelling around her yard on foot so as to take stock of her surroundings. Volunteers got used to Lucky bumping into them at the leaf cutting table or jumping the line for formula, in front of Bonny Fire.

Wiruna Lucky
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Unfortunately, due to her age, Lucky's molars were becoming increasingly ground down. On numerous occasions, Lucky would present with a a lopsided bloating to her face - it turned out that this was due to nothing more than a pad of semi-chewed eucalytus leaf deposited in the side of her cheek. Volunteers would have to massage the pad down for her to swallow it.

Koalas need healthy teeth to grind down the large volume of leaf they need to consume each day to survive. In Lucky's case, she was no longer able to do this adequately. It was her time to join Cloud in the great gumtree in the sky.

Dear speckley-nosed one, you will be missed.


Click here to see more photos of Wiruna Lucky.

Joey joy

Just two weeks ago, Bonny Fire was tantalising us all with her delightfully puckered pouch and the promise of joey within! She was down from her favourite tree a lot more than usual, getting her extra fill of freshly delivered leaf now that she's eating for two.


Bonny's full pouch
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Then, unexpectedly, a little arm would shoot out...


Oy! Whose arm is that?
From koalawrangler's gallery.
I just managed to catch the arm retreating back into the pouch on video:


...and we knew that it wouldn't be too long before this little smiley face paid us a visit.

All the beautiful photos below are courtesy of Broken Puzzle's gallery.

Click here to see more photos of Bonny Fire's precious little joey at the Koala Hospital, Port Macquarie.

Click here to find out just how our Bonny got in the family way in the first place!

Hospital for...possums? no. 3

Possy Possum at 52 grams
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Strictly speaking, Possy wasn't really in the hospital's care, but rather in Cheyne's, the hospital supervisor. Cheyne fed Possy around the clock at home and brought him into the koala hospital every day on her motorbike, tucked safely into her leather jacket. Possy spent the day in the humidicrib which is usually reserved for pinkies (unfurred koalas). Possy was snug as a bug in a rug, enveloped in a nest of knitted pouches, all the colours of the rainbow.

Possy Possum
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Cheyne fed Possy with a marsupial supplement every few hours - much the same routine as with a young koala joey. The syringe was almost too big for little Possy who would eagerly gulp at the drops of formula.

Ten weeks' later, and Possy Possum is showing all the signs of developing into a healthy young sugar glider.

He weighed in at the grand amount of 52 grams, and he is developing the telltale webbing through his arms that will allow him to glide from branch to branch.



Possum Cam!

Click here to see more photos of possum patients recovering at the Koala Hospital, Port Macquarie.

Noah's a goer

When last we left little Noah, he was extending his stay in Port Macquarie by a few more weeks. His weight was a bit lower than we'd have liked, and we wanted to be sure young Noah would have everything in his favour before we released him back into the world.

By the beginning of May, Noah was ready for his big trip back to his home range down near Port Stephens, over two and half hours away from the Koala Hospital.

Apparently, Noah enjoyed his road trip home. He munched on nicholii and red iron bark leaf all the way, and never once whined, "are we there yet?"

On arrival, Noah took off up his chosen tree, a Eucalyptus robusta, or good ol' swamp mahogany, as we koalawranglers call it, a koala favourite. Having spent over six months in the same tree (in our joey yard), Noah naturally took a moment or two to orient himself before scooting to the top of the tree and digging in to the fresh leaf.

I'm told that it was dusk by the time his carers from the Native Animal Trust Fund left Noah happily chewing away. Although it's a bit cooler down there than in Port Macquarie, they resisted giving him a blankie...he's got plenty of koala fur to keep him warm :)

Click here to see more photos of One Mile Beach Noah.

One Mile Beach Noah...still on the beach

Cheyne examining Noah
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Little Noah has been "on loan" to us from our friends at Native Animal Trust Fund for the last few months. He is an orphan, like our other joeys, and has been sharing a yard with three girls until he grows big enough to be returned to his home range down south. You can read more about Noah here.

There's been a note on the board for the last week or so that we should attempt to "capture" Noah if he should come down during our shifts as he is just about due for his return home. Since the joeys have a tree in their yard, they keep their own schedule, coming down for leaf when it suits them, often in the middle of the night. Noah generally "assumes the position" in the lowest crook of the tree and doesn't budge.


The other girl joeys tend to manoeuvre around the tree to avoid him as he gets a touch grumpy if his sleep is disturbed (even though he's sleeping in a major thoroughfare!). We call him "No Way Noah", cos there's no way any other joey is getting past him without some fierce words. You can read about one such altercation here.

One Mile Beach Noah
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Today, Noah is in the treatment room being de-ticked. He's being collected tomorrow to return home to One Mile Beach.

A total of nine ticks have been plucked off Noah so far (see below). Tick infestations can lead to anaemia in koalas, especially young ones who don't carry the body weight of adult koalas. Despite the good job Cheyne and Amanda are doing, Noah is grizzling as they gently search his fur. After they're satisfied he's clean, he sits on the table, happy as Larry, just looking around with a dopey expression on his face. "Shouldn't I be sleeping?", he's probably wondering.

One Mile Beach Noah's ticks!
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Cheyne has jumped on the phone to Noah's original carers. It seems that Noah has lost some weight since his last weigh-in, which could be to do with his tick burden. Cheyne and NATF agree that Noah's release should be delayed for a few weeks until Noah beefs up a bit.

Here's a video of Noah just kicking back on the treatment table following his tick search:


He's going to spend a night in ICU to make it easy for the staff to check him for ticks tomorrow. Then he'll be back in his usual spot in yard 6, pending release once around Anzac Day.

It was something of a comedy of errors transferring Noah into a unit for the night. As joeys usually do, he kept swinging his little legs in an effort to free himself from Amanda's grasp:

(Warning: the following video contains mild coarse language).


Click here to see more photos of One Mile Beach Noah.