Et tu, koalawrangler?

When I return to Sandfly Jye to continue fixing his leaf, he's on the ground. Nothing strange about that, except as soon as he sees me, he bolts straight towards me. What is it with stampeding koalas today? Could it be the Ides of March?

Sandfly Jye
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Amanda has assigned her and me to yard 10, along with John, the inside vollie who's now working at the koala-face. John and I head up to yard 10, feed pots in hand. Jo is just departing after doing her poop and leaf rounds. I explain to John the all-important rule always to wait until a uni researcher has given the all-clear in yard 10, ICU or the aviaries.

Tractive is up a tree, but Therese is down so John starts feeding her. There are a number of new residents in yard 10 since I was last here. Lookout Harry from the aviaries has moved into Macquarie Peter's old unit. Sandfly Jye, the piggy-nosed koala whose intensive care unit I mopped out last Thursday, is next to Warrego Martin. Ocean Roy is coming up from ICU so we're to set up a new unit on the other side of Jye. Tozer Tom has been moved back into ICU pending release.

I put out the collection boxes earlier, but wasn't sure that I'd put them in the best places. Amanda suggests one of the boxes from yard 9 should come up to yard 10. I head down there to retrieve it and see that the vollies there are feeding two of the koalas. One of them pleads with me to feed O'Briens Fiona. I go to ask where she is, when I see her on the ground at one of the girls' feet. The other koalas have been fed ahead of her and she's not pleased. I pick up her feed pot and she bounds towards me like a puppy...a puppy with huge, curved talon-like claws... I've fed her before, but only ever on a gunyah; this ground thing is new. She's so pushy. I crouch down and start gently syphoning the formula into her mouth, but she keeps flailing her arms towards me. It's not enough that the syringe is in her mouth; she's got to be holding onto something. It makes sense: when they eat, they are usually yanking leaf towards them, or at least holding onto a tree.

One flailing arm finally finds purchase in my bare forearm. She's not clawing to hurt me, so I'm not worried; he just wants me in her grip. To her, I'm basically a food supply. The claws don't draw blood; only pinch a little. The main trouble is that it's my feeding arm and I need to keep refilling the syringe. I get one of the ladies to hold the feed pot while I lean into Fiona to release her grip. The claws don't retract so the only way to pull free is not to pull, but to push gently towards them. I dash into the ICU, grab a towel and return. Fiona has ambled off and is harrassing another vollie. I draw her over with the syringe and, with a towel now covering my arm, continue to feed her. She is insistent about the food, like she's famished. Once it's gone, however, she bounds off up a tree and is gone. Eats, shoots and leaves.


Links Lorna
From koalawrangler's gallery.
I return to yard 10 with the collection box and make my apologies to Amanda. I head down to start on Links Lorna who looks remarkably relaxed, nestled in her leaf like a furry cabbage. She squints at me dozily, and doesn't even eep at me once. I rake around her yard, replace her water, and then empty the leaf at the other end of the gunyah. Next, I start on Sandfly Jye. He has such an unique little face with is always-flared nostrils framed in pink. He sits calmly on his gunyah without a peep.

Uni vet Jo arrives to do her medicating rounds. This time she's armed with a towel-covered stick to distract Oxley Jo. The stick ups the ante from simply having a madwoman yelling standing in front of Oxley Jo yelling "la la la"; Jo now needs instrumental distraction. When I return to Sandfly Jye to continue fixing his leaf, he's on the ground. Nothing strange about that, except as soon as he sees me, he bolts straight towards me. What is it with stampeding koalas today? First Fiona now Jye. Could it be the Ides of March? Snagglepus-like, I exit stage left, grabbing the rake off the ground just in time to put between Jye and myself. I'm certain that if I don't, he may climb me!

As I rush out of the yard with Jye in hot pursuit, Jo and Amanda are heading my way and explain Jye's behaviour. Jo has to give him some oral medication, so she decides it's best to bag him and plant him on the leaf rack to administer it. Amanda tells Jo that I'm trying to get experience handling the koalas. Jo waves the bag at me and I open the gate like it's a lion's den.

Jo gives me some pointers. You can't be tentative: you throw the bag over confidently and follow through. It's the quick and the dead in the fast-paced world of koala-bagging. Tentative is exactly how I feel. Jye is back on his gunyah now. Under Jo's guidance, I fling the bag over his head. The complication is that they're never just sitting there; they're firmly gripping a fork of wood. So this goes in the bag too and the koala is not about to let go. Instead, the koala is doing everything it can to nose its way out of the bag. Furthermore, with the bag over the koala, you lose track of which bit of the koala is where. Jo is giving me instructions like "grab his wrists" and most of it is going in one ear and out the other. Somehow, finally, it's done. One koala, bagged.

Ocean Roy arrives from ICU and is plonked in his new yard. He appears to like his umbrella. I carry on cleaning Jye's yard while he's otherwise occupied on the leaf rack. If a koala needs to be fed and they're not very used to feeding, it's easier to bag them and then only let the head of the koala out of the bag to feed. They tend to take the formula uncomplainingly in that position. Jo has to take another koala back to the treatment room and suggests I give the bagging a go. It's Lookout Harry this time. He's up high on his perch and have trouble with this one, although it all works in the end, with Jo's help. Jo says you get the hang of it after you've bagged 20 or so koalas...


Amanda & Sandfly Jye
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Even after his feed, Jye still won't stop chasing me around his yard. He starts running and then I start running, and then pretty soon we're doing laps around his gunyah. Amanda is next door and keeps saying "just crouch down, he won't do anything and he'll stop running". I find this hard to believe so she comes in and demonstrates. Sure enough, as soon as she crouches down, Jye comes to a halt and just sits and looks in front of her. It's just not what I expected to happen. Amanda looks so at ease, you can tell she's been doing this for three years.

Tractive Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Just as John is preparing Lookout Harry's leaf, I see Tractive Golfer backing down his tree. He shambles over towards us and predictably starts chewing on the leaf overhanging the leaf rack. He even climbs a leg of the leaf rack and noses around the under the leaf from there. Using a branch as a lure, I draw Golfer away towards his own leaf. It's a tried-and-true method I was Yasmin use so successfully in the past. He follows happily enough and settles onto his gunyah for a good feed.

The new leaf arrives and we start to replenish the pots. Links Lorna, formerly so calm, decides she's not giving up her leafy cushioning without a peep or two. I gently try to dislodge her from her spot and she eeps her disgruntlement. Amanda has given me a little more formula to feed Sandfly Jye. We reckon he might still be a bit hungry since some of his mixture spilt while he was being fed on the leaf rack. I also saw him sitting on the ground of his yard, which made me think Imight have tuckered him out. He's interested in the food for a while as I dribble it into his mouth; then he starts moving his head away.

Back in the day-room, I flick through the post-mortem reports. I see that it was necessary to euthanase poor Crestwood Dampier, the adult male that Barb was looking after. It was determined that his lack of movement in the hindquarters was actually paralysis. He wouldn't have stood a chance of surviving in the wild. It was more humane to send him to that great gumtree in the sky.

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

Ellenborough Nancy: real wild child

Jo emerges, momentarily beaten by Nancy's loopiness, and announces "I'm gonna have to bag her".

Bellevue Bill
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm working with Danae in the aviaries this morning. She's been here twice a day, every day, for a week now, so she's an old hand. The aviaries occupy their own small yard which is reached by a gate near the leaf shed. If a koala somehow got out of an aviary while we were cleaning it, the animal would have to negotiate the gate before reaching the outside world. Saying that, I reckon O'Briens Fiona could probably manage to scale it...she's a wiley thing!

Danae has already emptied one of Bellevue Bill's leaf pots. Danae has started feeding Bellevue Bill who seems to enjoy it, although he keeps an eye on me throughout the feed. Cheyne, the hospital supervisor, comes in to do her rounds, clipboard in hand. Before volunteers touch leaf in the aviaries (as well as the smaller yards in yard 10), each one has to be checked and "read" for the details that the koalas themselves can't tell us about their recovery. I go to start cleaning Oceanview Terry's aviary when Jo's voice sounds over the fence "wait! wait! I still need to check the aviaries".

I didn't realise that BOTH the supervisor and a member of the Sydney Uni team needs to examine the koalas' units and yards. Until then, I thought that Cheyne's doing the rounds was enough; but apparently they look for different things. One check they both do every morning is to "read the leaf". This means scrutinising the leaf bunches to see how much each koala has eaten and which type of eucalyptus. This serves at least two purposes: to ensure that the leaf collectors are gathering the kind of leaf the koalas are eating, and to gauge whether the koala is demonstrating a healthy appetite. They also look at how much poo is on the ground ("reading the poo", I suppose) as this contributes to the overall picture of the koala's health. The uni researchers also take poo samples from each koala for testing. Jo is armed with little zip-lock baggies for the purpose. I'm still holding a bunch of leaf from Terry's unit and she makes a quick survey of the bundle and jots down some notes on a clipboard.

We're now free to carry on cleaning. Oceanview Terry is fast asleep under an arc of leaf so I empty the other pot, roll up the damp newspaper and replenish his dirt and water. There's no towel to change so it's a quick turnaround. There are some French tourists visiting the hospital so Danae pauses to give them some info about the hospital in their native tongue. The French is punctuated by the odd English word or expression. I hear "wet bottom" a couple of times, describing the ailment commonly suffered by koalas affected by Chlamydia. I wonder why Danae wouldn't have translated the term into French somehow, maybe derrière mouillé?

The new leaf is still not ready so I brave Ellenborough Nancy's aviary. She's sitting quietly down on end of her gunyah, so I gradually cut the old towel off the other end and sneak the clean towel on. With other koalas you can gently prod them to vacate the dirty end in order to replace the towel there. Not with Nancy. She's too much of a wild-thing. I keep thinking she must have been named after that other wild-child, Nancy Spungen, girlfriend to Sid Vicious of Sex Pistols fame.

Nancy decides she's going to climb down to the ground. I work as fast as I can to tie on the towel to the rest of the gunyah. I unravel the second new towel and wonder if she'll snatch at it like a rag to a bull as she did last time. Fortunately she's more interested in leaning up against the door and peering outside. All the while I'm tying the new towel on, I'm shooting her glances; her extra-wildness makes her unpredictable so she's not a koala you want to turn your back on.


Ellenborough Nancy
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Jo turns up again, with more medication for the koalas. Both the boys take treat her entrance with stoicism. Danae and I hold our breath as Jo goes in to medicate Nancy. Nancy's aviary faces the joey yard, so we can't see what's going on in there from outside. Jo emerges, momentarily beaten by Nancy's loopiness, and announces "I'm gonna have to bag her": bagging a koala for treatment often lessens their distress. She returns with said bag (each outdoor koala has their own dedicated bag kept in a named compartment in the treatment room) and slips Nancy inside. We can still see her wriggling about under the canvas.

With Nancy gone, I dive into her unit, keen to take advantage of its being koala-free. I quickly sweep up her wet newspaper, finding a couple of ticks in the process, which I pocket for later processing. I'm only just starting to lay the dry newspaper when Barb appears with the Nancy bag. "Oh no, already?", I lament. She laughs. Barb lets Nancy ease herself out of the bag at her own pace and climb back on the gunyah. She's clearly subdued after her trip to the treatment room; I give her plenty of space, finishing the cleaning and leaving quietly.

I should qualify that beneath my mock characterisations of Nancy as a scary beast is my desire to see her recuperate and be released; I really can't wait till she's back amid those soaring gums of Ellenborough where she belongs. You can see the improvement in Ellenborough Nancy's infected left eye in only a few weeks. Glad to see her treatment's doing her some good.

Two weeks ago Ellenborough Nancy From koalawrangler's gallery.

Now Ellenborough Nancy From koalawrangler's gallery.

We learn that the fresh leaf is ready so set about replenishing the leaf pots. Back in the day-room I write up and bottle Nancy's ticks. I hear that there's been a motor vehicle accident near the corner of Ocean and Pacific Drive. Peter sets off on the rescue. With the aviaries done, Danae and I see what we can do to help in the ICU. Barb allocates Danae Innes Tony in unit 1 and me Condon Geoff in unit 4. Helen and Anne are next door with Ocean Roy.

Condon Geoff is the koala who would wedge himself in the space above the door of his unit in ICU. When he graduated to yard 10, he pushed over his umbrella in his smaller yard and took off up a tree in the main part of yard 10. He's back in the units where the staff can keep an eye on him. He's far up the end of his gunyah nearest the door when I enter so I set about doing the towel at the other end. I don't want to shift him more than necessary so I go out to prepare his leaf to make it an easy swap job.

Barb tells me in hushed tones that we shouldn't touch Golf Starr's unit. Her illness is too far progressed for her to recover. Instead, she will be going to that great gumtree in the sky. I remember how upsetting I found it when I first started at the hosptial and learned that little Dunbogan Val was not going to make it through the night. It still saddens me becoming so close to these animals, caring for them, and then facing the inevitable situation that some will never make it outside the hospital. But that is the nature of a hospital. I console myself that they pass away painlessly and with dignity. In addition, it's good to know that the researchers are learning something from each koala they treat which contributes to their knowledge of koala dissease. Ultimately, this benefits the koala population as a whole.

I return to Geoff and place a newly wetted bunch of leaf down the end with the clean towel. I gently lift the bunch he's hiding behind at the other end. He eeps briefly so I leave him be and go to wash and fill the other pot. When I return, he's still sitting there in the open when there's a perfectly delicious new bunch of leaf awaiting him down the other end. He's obviously a koala of habit and is attached to his usual spot. His back is facing the opposite direction to where I want him to go. My mere presence in the unit is causing his ears to flick. It's such a subtle gesture, but I now know how to read some of the signs of their fear or discomfort. The "conversation" between koala and human is rarely overblown.


Condon Geoff
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Rather than touch him, I gently tug at the old towel beneath him. Again he eeps his refusal. Finally, he gets the hint and ambles down the other end to the fresh leaf. Within seconds, I can hear him chomping away, now oblivious to my presence, how he got there probably forgotten. With Geoff fully occupied, I can now mop and paper the floor without resistance.

On my way out, I peer into the treatment room to see Cheyne examining the new admission. Barb is also feeding a koala in a basket. Peter comes outside to join us at the window. He's covered in scratches from the rescue. He explains that the koala with Barb is Crestwood Dampier, a koala with damaged hindquarters that she is caring for at home. He's a big boy, not like the little joeys she normally looks after.

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

Wednesday

Cheyne is Chief Koalawrangler and you can tell by her confidence handling the koalas. She deftly plonks Tom on his gunyah; nonplussed, Tom tucks straight into his wet leaf and is immediately in the 'zone'.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I've been asked to fill for in Maggie on the Wednesday afternoon shift for the next two weeks. There are a host of people in the day-room when I enter: Cathy, the teamleader; a lady called Joy; Anne from Fridays who's working in the shop; Danae, the French backpacker; and Geoff, who's doing today's 3pm walk-and-talk.

Without much to do before 3pm, I wander through the yard. Burraneer Henry is, as ever, up his tree; this time his arms are dangling down in a comical gesture. Back inside, Cathy is mixing up formula and starts to tell us some koala tales. For instance, wiley O'Briens Fiona escaped AGAIN this morning. She has been moved to yard 9 with the permanent girls, but was found up a tree outside her yard in the main grounds. At least she doesn't go far. Fortunately, they've identified how it is she escaped and so have foiled her plans for the future. There have been other movements too. Cathie Sampson has been moved to Fiona's old spot in yard 3 and Jupiter Cheryl has taken his unit in ICU.


Burraneer Henry
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Three koalas need to be fed in the front yards: Innes Wonga, Kempsey Carolina and Siren Gem, the joey. Gem is snuggled up a tree so I start feeding Kempsey. She wakes up as I pull the stool over and starts to move towards me. A crowd gathers at the fence just as a realise that the syringe is a bit dodgy; I can't exactly vacate my post and seek out another. It's as though the plunger is too small for the cylinder -- it just slips through with no pressure. Kempsey is enough of a dribbler without the syringe dribbling to begin with.

Joy is in yard 9 feeding O'Briens Fiona. It's so strange to see her in the wide expanses of yard 9, and with the old girls. She's seated at the end of gunyah beam, pitching towards Joy. In between drinks, she pokes her tongue in and out, like she's licking the air. Bonny Fire is shambling along a nearby beam; she was up a tree earlier so they haven't mixed formula for her yet. Cathy is watering the kids in yard 9A.

Wiruna Lucky is lounging nakedly on a nearby beam. Joy has moved aside the leaf pots so that the tourists can see; Lucky is completely exposed, but sleepily stretched out on the beam. I start to feed her and she drinks it in without moving. "Don't get up now", I mumble.

Joy is happy to feed Birthday Girl and water in yard 9 so I check on where Danae is at outside. She's watered Wonga and Sampson; I water Henry and Westi. Gem is still up his tree although he stirs; not enough to come down to feed though.

I head round to yard 10 where Danae is trying to work out which is Tractive Golfer and which is Ocean Therese. Surprisingly, both are down on their gunyahs. I suggest that Danae feeds Tom since there's a crowd around the front row. I interrupt Ocean Therese who is eating her leaf. She is happy to take the formula. I'm having no luck with syringes today. The black rubber bit comes off the plunger and embeds inself into the syringe. Danae gives up on feeding Tom who has lost interest in formula and returned to his leaf. Just then Cathy comes into the yard with Warrego Martin in a basket. I open up his yard and she lets him out. He leaps onto the beam and straight up to the highest point of his gunyah. Cathy pops Tom in the basket and takes him off to ICU.

Danae starts feeding Tractive Golfer while I water Oxley Jo then Links Lorna. Bizarrely Lorna is sitting out in the middle of her gunyah and seeminly unbothered by my presence. It's so not like her not to be hiding and eeping weakly into her leaf. Cheyne returns with Tozer Tom swinging between her arms. Cheyne is Chief Koalawrangler and you can tell by her confidence handling the koalas. She deftly plonks Tom on his gunyah; nonplussed, Tom tucks straight into his wet leaf and is immediately in the 'zone'.

Links Lorna From koalawrangler's gallery.

Tozer Tom From koalawrangler's gallery.

I return to the day-room for another syringe to finish feeding Ocean Therese. I look for Cathy and find her in the treatment room with Jo who is taking a photo of a large jar of brownish liquid. Jo gives me a new syringe and chucks the old one in the bin. Back with Therese, she's got a mouthful of leaf, but pauses to finish off the formula.

Danae waters the aviaries while I wash the formula pots. Jo is in the day-room having a late lunch so I take the opportunity to find out about a few of the koalas' conditions. Golf Starr, a koala who was found lethargic and low in a tree, has a poor prognosis as a result of Chlamydia complications. She has paraovarian cysts, thickened bladder and hydro-ureter kidney (ie the ureter has dilated into the kidney). They are waiting on blood results.

We also talk about Oxley Westi who has the exopthalmous eyes in yard 1. Apparently, they don't know what causes it. I comment that they don't seem to have improved, but Jo says that sometimes she pulls them in and sometimes she doesn't. It's an ability some animals have. We also talk about little Ocean Casurina, who I remember feeding some weeks back. Apparently she had a pinky when she was release, so perhaps she's a mother?

There's another admission, Anna Bay Miles, who's been brought in under the auspices of a wildlife trust. I also read in the day-book that there's also a koala called Crestwood Dampier, who I can't see on any of the whiteboards. It turns out she's in home-care with Barb. On a sad note, I see that Treetop Boxer was brought in a few days ago. He was found on the ground with a distended stomach. He was discovered to have cancer and was euthanased! I remember so well my second day when Geoff transferred Boxer to yard 10A before he was released only a few weeks back. At least his pain was put to an end.

Before I go, Cathy shows me and Danae how to prepare a rescue basket. It contains a pillow sealed in a garbage bag, in case they pee. You cover that in two towels and then fold another two towels length-ways so that it lines the edge of the basket cocoon-style. Finally, you insert a rolled-up towel in the centre that mimicks a "tree" for them to hold on to. Aw.

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