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.
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.
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.
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.
Hi,
ReplyDeletethank you for putting together this really great blog. I just found out about the koala hospital. Unfortunately the website seems to be down right now. Do you happen to know the chances of getting a position as a vet? I could imagine the number of people wanting to work there is quite enormous isn't it?