Taking Nancy home

There has been a catalogue of koala machismo in the ICU, from dirt-tipping and horny grunting sounds to the pawing/chasing/foot-nibbling by that lothario Morrish Steven towards Emma, one of the other vollies. Now I'm convinced he's Jim Morrison's koala reincarnation.

Ellenborough Nancy
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I scan the whiteboard to get a quick feel for the lay of the land: who's moved, who's been shipped out. I see a note next to Ocean Therese's name. Her transfer to the Walkabout Wildlife Sanctuary at Calga (near Gosford) has been approved. No! I knew it was coming but how I will miss that fuzzy little face around here! I see from their website that she will have an ex-Koala Hospital companion in a fellow called Keith the koala, formerly known as Parklands Keith. He looks a nice chap, a bit like Wiruna Lucky (if that's his picture on the homepage). I can see a trip to Gosford some time in the future to visit our Therese.

There are FOUR koalas being released today! Three uni koalas from yard 10 -- Ellenborough Nancy, Ocean Roy and Oceanview Terry; as well as one KPS koala from ICU, Lake Private. Wow! I'm so glad for them. I remember when it was almost a full house in here a couple of months ago; now that mating season is over and we're heading into Winter, the koala traffic is due to slow down.

Ocean Roy
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm not assigned to yard 10 today, but I decide to head up there to say goodbye to Therese, Roy, Nancy and Terry. When I get up there, Therese is asleep and curled into a grey ball. Innes Tony, however, new transferee to yard 10, is wide awake and looking handsome on his lofty perch (in Sandfly Jye's old spot). It's like I'm seeing Tony in a whole new light -- literally. Whenever koalas are transferred from the ICU or aviaries into the yards, they take on a more vivid aspect. They're also generally further along in their recuperation so, coupled with the warm morning light, they positively beam when they're out here. Today is a bit grey and rain is threatening, but Tony looks proud of his new digs. Ocean Roy is on the lookout for any activity from the yard.

Joey mess
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I've been assigned the joeys and ICU. Being assigned the joeys doesn't necessarily mean ever seeing the joeys (except as fuzzy grey blobs clinging to their treetops). Today is not different; there's no sign of them, just their mess: the telltale evidence of their nocturnal leaf party. The choice tips are gnawed off the branches, the twigs are snapped in their stampede to fresh leaf, and the ground is covered in poo and half-chewed leaves. It's the koala equivalent of a bunch of kids leaving empty chip packets and half-drunk cans of cola on the floor of the rumpus room.

Indeed, it's like they're in training for the carry-on that we've been witnessing in the ICU lately. By yesterday morning, Morrish Steven had completely stripped the towels from his gunyah and torn the bark from the wood underneath. I'm reliably informed that Calwalla Bill and Lake Private did the same. Cheyne says she's been observing this behaviour in the ICU for a few days now and has finally put two and two together. For the last week or so, these boys have been sharing ICU with Oxley Nina, a girl koala... Three males sharing a confined space with one female means they've got something to prove about koala manhood.

If they were deer, they'd be locking antlers; if they were birds, they'd be puffing out their chest feathers; if they were gorillas, they'd be beating their chests; if they were stockbrokers, they'd be bragging about their big share portfolios. Yes, these boy koalas have been showing off to impress Nina. Big time. All this room-trashing behaviour is about proving to Oxley Nina which one of them is the big koala on campus. (Do they know she's *lowering my voice* with child?!). There has been a catalogue of koala machismo in the ICU, from dirt-tipping and horny grunting sounds to the pawing/chasing/foot-nibbling by that lothario Morrish Steven towards Emma, one of the other vollies. Now I'm convinced he's Jim Morrison's koala reincarnation.

Lake Private
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Since Nina was released, and it's boys-only in ICU, they've returned to their usual ball-scratching nonchalance. (It's true, they do that a lot). I look in on Morrish Steven and his unit is pristine; so is Bill's and Private's.

It's Lake Private's last morning with us before his release, so he gets a special goodbye feed. His last supper in captivity. I've never actually fed Private before and it's funny how koalas vary in their feeding manners. He's eager but gentle at the same time. I have a little trouble with the syringe (the black stopper keeps coming off in the tube and I have to replace it). Private waits patiently between squirts. All the while I'm feeding, Private is squeezing out poo pellets like a production line. Wow, now that's feeling at ease in your surroundings. I'm not sure how I should feel about it. Suddenly, he jolts away from the syringe as though something unexpected has happened; I look down -- now he's peeing. He's been taken surprise by his own peeing mechanism. We both wait until he finishes peeing and recommence feeding. Ah, to be an animal and have no responsibility for personal hygiene or social norms.

Morrish Steven, mid-yawn
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Since Private's being released today, I don't need to clean his unit until he's gone. Instead I start on Calwalla Bill. There are no issues, despite the "strike out" warning on his door. He moves when I need him to, following the leaf pot to where I've moved it down the clean end of the gunyah. I can see that Morrish Steven is much mellower as well. I have to feed Steven as well and he is notable for his good behaviour: no grabbing. He still reaches out towards me when there's a break in the formula flow, but it's not the swipey urgency I've seen him demonstrate before. I notice that he's given his syringe quite a serve in the past though. The nib is scarred where he's gnawed at it on his back teeth. But he's gotten better at feeding now; he doesn't try to draw the syringe into his mouth like he used to. I can hear him slurping the liquid in and then stopping to swallow. I stop the flow each time I hear him do that. After feeding, Steven is completely mellow, even cracking a yawn before settling down for snooze.

I have a brief chat with Peter while I'm out cutting leaf. He's heading to Ellenborough to release Ellenborough Nancy. I would dearly love to accompany him since I've never been on a release before. I've also had a bit to do with Nancy while she's been in here. I was convinced she didn't like me for a while, after she took a swipe at me one day in the aviaries. I've since learned not to take such behaviour to heart. (That's right: Linksy doesn't really love me and Ellenborough Nancy doesn't really hate me; we're just leaf purveyors or annoyances to them. It's nothing personal!) Because Nancy heralds from a very rural part of the Hastings (unlike Port where koalas and humans tend to cohabit), she struggled more than most with the confines necessary for her treatment. It was satisfying to see her moved from an enclosed aviary to an outside yard, now I'd like to see her returned to her real home in the wilds of Ellenborough.

I watch as Judy brings Nancy into the treatment room in a bag. You know it's her by the way she's squirming under the canvas. She's not a koala to take any kind of confinement lightly. Judy wants to give her a final weigh-in before her release, but Nancy won't settle in the bag. When she's put on the scales her head pokes out the top and the handlers have to do their best to contain her just long enough to get the reading. Judy removes her from the bag, bearing her towards her basket in the customary fashion by her forearms; all the while, Nancy's twisting her back legs wildly trying to catch her capturer with claws. Ellenborough Nancy is a basket-case to the very end. The sooner we get this wild thing back to her wilds, the better!

I ask Tracy and Chris if they wouldn't mind cleaning out the final unit in ICU -- Walcha Barbie's -- so that I can head off with Pete. They're happy to, so we head off to Ellenborough with Nancy soundless in her covered basket on the backseat. It's a 57km drive to Ellenborough. Up the Oxley Highway, the urbanisation of Port quickly retreats and we find ourselves amid towering trees. It's alternately sprinkling and raining steadily. Fortunately, Nancy's been getting used to the rain so the transition won't be as great for her as for, say, Lake Private, who's been warmly ensconced in an inside unit while at the hospital.

I've got a map drawn up my Cheyne showing where Nancy was originally found, which was near the Ellenborough police station. Pete and I wonder about how she was brought in; Pete conjectures that perhaps a copper rang it in. I imagine it went down something like this:

"Hello, koala hospital? We've got a really ornery koala here in the lock-up..."

If her antics in the avaries are anything to go by, I can imagine her rattling her metal cup along the bars with the best of them.


Ellenborough Nancy's new backyard
From koalawrangler's gallery.
As we approach Long Flat, the trees start to really soar and there's mist hanging down from the mountains like cobwebs. Clouds obscure the peaks. It's beginning to rain more heavily, but we're here now with a koala who's freedom is in sight.

Pete carries her basket towards a huge nicholii tree, a perennial koala favourite. We decide, however, that the trunk is a bit broad. Nancy's been used to gripping a narrow gunyah so we want to give her something a little easier to climb on her first day out. We move around the edge of the reserve, nearer a great density of trees and find the perfect tree. Pete strips off any loose bark that might get in her way. The tree's not too wide and has a low fork for Nancy's to nestle into. Here's how it went down:


It took her a few seconds to come to grips with her new surroundings (remember: she'd been in the dark in the back of a car for the last 45 minutes). Then, instead of climbing the tree we'd prepared earlier, she takes off out of the basket, scampers across the path and takes off up another tree. The's a tricky sheet of dangling bark she has to negotiate her way around, but we can see her arm muscles working. Watching her dig in with her claws reminds me somewhat of a rock-climber securing each precarious step with a spikey boot in the rockface. She looks like an old hand at it and I stand and watch her careful progress, ignoring the increasing rain. Nancy stops and peers down at me and Pete every once in a while. It's like she's saying, "Can I really stay here?".

By the time, we head back to the car, she's extraordinarily high up and perched in a sturdy tree fork. I'm shocked by how small she looks in her new, majestic and endless surrounds. She's like a tiny speck in the wilderness, which she's once more an organic part of. Good luck to you, Ellenborough Nancy!


Ellenborough Nancy in her new home
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Click here to view more of today's koala hospital snaps.

Foxie lady

Jo asks us who we think should be moved into Lorna's old yard from the inside units or the aviaries. It's like trying to decide who should be upgraded from a standard room to a suite.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I couldn't keep my eyes open last night after the action-packed koala hospital open day. Despite hitting the sack at 8.30pm, I still managed to oversleep this morning. I've given Pete a call to let him know I'll be a bit late.

Emma's in yard 3 when I arrive. Things aren't quite back to normal in the dayroom yet. There're umbrellas and display boards stacked near the tables that had been scattered around the hospital forecourt the day before. The koalas are all where they should be -- and that's the main thing! My name's not on the board against a particular yard or unit. John's got the aviaries as usual. Jim's out in the leaf skip; not by it, in it. He's trying to stamp down the overflowing leaf, making heavy footsteps in a circular path around the skip. I shout out, "they're not grapes you know". This is as witty as I get at 8.15am on a Sunday.

Tracy's in yard 9 feeding Birthday Girl. Peter and Chris are contemplating Bonny Fire. I greet Pete with the question, "so what's my punishment?" (for being late). I'm allocated to ICU (no punishment at all). I ask him if it's okay to help Jim out first in yard 10 before starting on ICU together. Chris calls me over to look at Bonny's foot. They reckon she's got a tick between her toes. Pete's gone to find some tweezers. Bonny's not pleased with the close attention we've been paying her and starts to scoot up the pole connecting her gunyah to a nearby tree. Chris shows he's been learning some koala lore by gently pushing on her forehead to keep her in place while we both have a closer look. I reckon it's got to be a tick too.

I grab some of the good orange leaf cutters and head into yard 10. Jim's already raked Golfer's area and made up his recycle pot. I start on Ocean Therese. She's down from her tree and wrapped around a fork on her gunyah. She leans towards me as I enter, nosing the air. I can't feed her or touch her. She's being dehumanised for her impending transfer; although this is a contradiction in terms for Therese who's probably even more human-friendly than Kempsey Carolina (which is saying something). Compared to the other wild koalas we get at the hospital, she's like a living Gonzo or Fozzie Bear, more fuzzy animated creature than animal. They say she might have incurred brain damage from her car accident last year, which might account for her gentle docility.

She climbs down from her gunyah and approaches me. I'm not worried she'll climb me like Sandfly Jye might try to do. It feels like she must want to be near, but, as Cheyne always says, it's more likely that to Therese I'm just a walking purveyor of leaf or formula. So I try not to touch her, which is almost impossible as she's virtually walking into me. Then she sits back on her haunches, not pushy like O'Briens Fiona used to be. She just lets me do what I need to, raking up her poo and clearing one pot of leaf.

A lot of poop and dried leaves appear to have gathered near the edges of her yard. I start to arrange it into a few smaller piles. As I sweep one up into the dustpan, I I catch a glint of aubergine among the poo pellets. Is it a tick? I shake the pan so as to sort through the oval objects better, momentarily feeling like I'm panning for gold -- trying to find that glossy tick among the dull droppings. No luck, it all goes into the poo strainer near the hospital's back entrance.


Ocean Roy
From koalawrangler's gallery.
As Jim starts on Ocean Roy, he asks me what happened to Links Lorna. It's nice to be able to say she's been released. Jim confesses he's a little sad; she was a bit of a favourite for him. I know just what he means. You develop feelings of fondness for these animals even if those feelings are never reciprocated. The more you're with them, the more you become aware of their different behaviours and vulnerabilities that we then anthropomorphise into "personalities". Then it's not just any koala that's freed, it's a specific koala that you cherish particular memories of. We wranglers are not veterinary experts; we're people with pets and kids and (usually) non-medical day-jobs. So we're non-scientific about our responses to being around koalas so regularly. I can't work this closely with particular animals for weeks on end without feeling a poignant sense of loss when they're gone. Lorna will always be "Eepy" to me, because of her characteristic you're getting to close warning noise which sounded just like eep.

Jim's finishing Oceanview Terry's yard so I start on Sandfly Jye's. Jye immediately jumps down from his perch and races towards me, something he's becoming known for. I'm more familiar with his antics now so I don't even crouch down. He stands beside me as I rake, until suddenly I feel his claws on my lower leg. Hmmm. Best not stick around and see what happens next. Peter brings in the food for Golfer and Jye. So Jye's probably eager to be fed. I try to feed him while he's on the ground, but he's grabby so it's not working. I leave the unit and wait until he's bored with roaming and regains his high fork. He usually feeds best (in my experience) when he's above you; even on the gunyah beam he tends to grab, which makes feeding a bit hazardous. Up on his perch, he takes the food complacently, poking his pink tongue out rhythmically; it's the same colour as his flared pink nostrils. Jim says Jye also prefers to feed from his left-hand side and he's right. Probably cos most of the wranglers would be right-handed.

Morrish Steven
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

Jye's more subdued now so I can finish raking his yard. Jim's finished Ocean Roy and Links Lorna's unit is empty since her release, so we've done all we can until the leaf arrives. We head in to ICU. I start Lake Private, Jim is in with Innes Tony, Chris is next door with Anna Bay Miles, Ian's in with Calwalla Bill and Emma is trying to fend off Morrish Steven, in vain. Steven is known for being "grabby". He's not striking out, he just likes to reach out for you when you're near. Not sure what he wants exactly; it's probably just his way of expressing that he'd like some fresh leaf, please! Today he's even scampering around the ground and, according to Emma, biting at her knees.

Luckily Lake Private is quite placid. He's a wet-bottom so he gets a new towel, but the hardest thing is persuading him to move down to the fresh-towel end of the gunyah. He does so lingeringly and in reverse. When the leaf arrives I see that Chris has brought in Melaleuca and there's a bundle with a flourishing bunch of blossoms. I mention this to Chris, knowing how much Anna Bay Miles likes them. Miles is doing much better now; I recall Robyn saying that they didn't think he would make it. Perhaps it's the melaleuca! I wonder if Anna Bay Sooty loves it as well?

I see Barb in the treatment room and ask her how things turned out with Nulla Sam, the one found curled up on the ground. When I saw him yesterday, he was lying, unmoving, in his basket. His eyes were flickering open and closed; he really looked like he wouldn't last the night. Sam's lymph glands were also dramatically swollen. Barb had called the vet in who elected to put him to sleep. I'm pleased to hear that they were able to end his pain.

Next I start on Hindman Foxie. I want to do her unit all in one go since she is carrying a joey and is highly stressed. With the leaf here, I hope to restock her leaf to distract her while I finish cleaning the rest of her unit. Her towel is very clean so I check with Peter whether it's worth changing it. Changing is the more distressing part of the cleaning process since the animal has to be encouraged to move at some point, although we work around the animal as much as possible. Peter looks at the whiteboard and decrees that since she's not a wet-bottom, it's okay to leave it. Perhaps avoiding the stress of a towel change will offset whatever benefit is gained by a clean towel?

Foxie still keeps me in sight the whole time, as much as she can with one blind eye. I've noticed this to be a particular trait of koalas with vision in only one eye: Links Lorna and Ellenborough Nancy. Being partially blind must make them even more sensitive to potential danger.

I try to give her flourishing bunches she can hide in. When she moves down the leafy end, I can see her bulging pouch in all its glory. It's uplifting to see evidence of the koala population replenishing itself, despite everything that is working to deplete it (in particular, chlamydia and urbanisation).

Back in yard 10, Jye is sitting in one corner of his yard in an almost meditative pose. Jo is talking to Peter next door in Links Lorna's old yard. She pops in and expertly lifts him back onto his gunyah, where he returns to his slumber and doesn't move for the rest of the afternoon. Jo asks us who we think should be moved into Lorna's old yard from the inside units or the aviaries. Yard 10 is furthest from the treatment room so it can't be a koala who still needs close monitoring such as Bellevue Bill or Innes Tony. Condon Geoff is soon to be released so he may as well stay in the aviaries. Morrish Steven is too naughty (see above), and beside, he hasn't been here that long. It's like trying to decide who should be upgraded from a standard room to a suite.

Another contender is Ellenborough Nancy. I think she's the perfect choice. As one of the wildest koalas, it would be wonderful to graduate her to a yard that is fully outside. The umbrella will have to go though, in case she tries to use it to escape. This gets Jim and I to thinking. The koalas with only two leaf pots and no umbrella need a third recycle pot simply to provide more shelter for them. It's important to a koala's koalaness to have a spray of leafy branches to nest under. Jye and Oxley Jo both have a third pot with towering branches, but Oceanview Terry, Ocean Roy and Lorna's vacant yard (sans umbrella) do not.


Oceanview Terry wonders what Jim and Peter are up to down there
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Jim dons his Bob the Builder cap and retrieves some wide blue tape from his car. Peter tracks down some wire and some new leaf pots. I source the red tape that demarcates the recycle pots. Jim sets about tightening the existing wire on the gunyahs. Lookout Harry takes umbrage at this and gives Jim a swipe; fortunately, he's not hurt. Terry and Roy get new pots taped in place. There are no metal pot brackets so this will have to do. It means that the pots can't be taken down for a proper scrubbing, but they're designed for sheltering-leaf not eating-leaf.

Pete I grab some leftover leaf from the leaf shed and start to fashion new shelters for Terry and Roy. Terry actually treats his new bunch like it's a tree trunk and wraps himself around it, pinned in at the back with a tree fork. It really doesn't look comfortable, but there's still the higher fork climb up to if he wishes.

After my shift, D____'s parents come in to the hospital and I give them a guided tour around the yards. Ocean Kim delights us by clambering down from her leafy perch and tucking into the leaf there. Before we leave, D____'s folks adopt a koala, little Links VTR.

On my way home, I drive down Koala Street and past O'Briens Road. It gives me pause, as I remember funny little O'Briens Fiona, now fattening up in the heavenly treetops.

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

Wet koalas, wet koalawranglers

I'm talking to one visitor about koalas with wet-bottom, but she suddently breaks off the conversation to report, "SorrySorry, at first I thought it was a leaf but, actually, you have a praying mantis on your head".

Lookout Harry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It poured rain all night, accompanied by a wild wind that disconcerted the cat. She cried out several times during the night and demanded comforting. During these wakeful moments I wondered whether the koalas were okay during the blustery night.

I woke early and got to the hospital at 7.45. Strangely, Peter, the Sunday team leader wasn't there yet. I walked around the grounds and all koalas seemed well, albeit a little damp. Sandfly Jye and Birthday Girl were the only two koalas who were completely awake. Still no sign of Peter which was really peculiar. Jo, another volunteer, arrived and she gave Pete a buzz on his mobile. "Oh", I heard her say. "Daylight saving's ended". That's right, the clocks went back during the early hours of this morning. It wasn't now 8am, it was 7am! D'oh.

Shamefaced, I ask Peter if there's anything useful I can do to fill in the next hour, like rinse the feedpots of their anti-bac. He says, sure, and I can make up today's feed as well. I feel well practised after closely watching Amanda mixing up the feed, and then preparing it myself last Thursday. It's complicated though -- different dosages, different types of formula, some are administered by vollies, some by vets. So I talk to myself throughout the process, wetting face-washers to go under each filled pot. There's a black lump in the sink which, when I tweeze it out with my fingers, I recognise as being a tick. It might have fallen off one of yesterday's vollies.

Sandfly Jye
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Emma and I are assigned to yard 10. It's started raining again and I'm relieved to have my plastic poncho. Emma starts to feed Ocean Therese and I head in to feed Sandfly Jye. He's perched on his gunyah among the leaf fronds and accepts the first syringe of formula. He jerks his arm towards me, not in a swipe, but probably to grip onto me as he would while eating leaf. It becomes awkward to feed him this way as my arms are bare, so I give up until a little later when he's more in the mood to feed.

By now, Emma is feeding Tractive Golfer who is sitting on the edge of his gunyah where he's getting rained on. She's got no wet-weather gear and is getting wetter by the minute. I start to rake out Ocean Therese's yard -- she's also drenched but outside her the shelter of her leaf, hugging a tree. A rainjacket-clad Andrea comes through to do her rounds. I try to feed Jye some more. He's moved up to the highest fork of the gunyah, shirking the shelter of the overhanging branches of leaf. This time, he drinks more readily and lets me finish the pot.

Sandfly Jye
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

As I set out to sweep his yard, he jumps down to the lower beam and leans towards me. He's a funny one in terms of instigating human contact, chasing me around his gunyah the other day. I don't know if it's possible for him to jump on me...well, I know it's quite possible, I just don't know if he'd do it. I give him a wide berth and he scales down to the ground. At first he runs towards me, so I squat down to his level while I scrub out one of this leaf pots. I'm able to stand up and go about my cleaning and he generally leaves me alone; occasionally I feel a claw on my sock, but that's about it. He's bounding around his yard, scampering through puddles, not noticing the rain.


Sandfly Jye
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.
Lookout Harry and Warrego Martin are next. I swing Harry's umbrella around to shield him better from the rain. I empty one of his pots, revealing a cache of koala pellets in the fork of the beams once the leaf has shifted. Harry's face is encircled by leaf. Martin is cozy under his umbrella -- the only koala in the yard who's managed to stay completely dry. As I rake around his yard, he decides I've encroached his personal space and heads north...up to the spokes of his umbrella.

Warrego Martin
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Emma has looked after the koalas at the other end of yard 10: Links Lorna and Ocean Roy. We're now both drenched, despite our rain ponchos. We head inside for a cuppa and to dry off. Jim ducks his head into the day-room to ask if there's a trick to moving a koala off his towel. Jim's in ICU, warm and dry. I tease him that there are benefits to arriving late. He's replaced one of the towels on Anna Bay Miles's gunyah, but the koala is facing away from the direction Jim wants him to go and refusing to budge. I recall that Miles likes Melaleuca blosssoms so I head out to the leaf shed and try to hunt some out. I return with a branch. Miles nibbles the blossom enthusiastically, but won't be lured away. I suggest to Jim that he just leaves him; it's more distressing to force a koala to move that doesn't want to. He'll move when he's ready.

Danae is finished in the yards too, so she, Emma and I pitch in to help finish the units in ICU before the fresh leaf arrives. Emma takes Jupiter Cheryl, Danae takes Morrish Steven, and I take Calwalla Bill. His unit is wonderfully dry and quite clean. He hasn't kicked over his dirt or water, like many of the ICU koalas do; but, after I sweep away his paper and poop, he continues to drop pellets like airborne missiles, the same as on Friday.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

The leaf arrives and we re-don our ponchos and head back to the swamp of yard 10. We're realy drenched now, despite the wet-weather gear. Ocean Therese is still wrapped around her tree out in the rain, even though I replenish her leaf. Her fur looks soggy; I can squeeze it between my fingers and watch the rivulets run off. I could probably wring her out. She seems unpeturbed.

We do our best to give the koalas tall branches that droop to provide plenty of shelter. I struggle to stock Sandfly Jye's highest pot as I get asked a few questions by the tourists. I'm talking to one visitor about koalas with wet-bottom, but she suddently breaks off the conversation to report, "Sorry, at first I thought it was a leaf but, actually, you have a praying mantis on your head". I calmly call to Emma to get it off me. She doesn't want to touch it and flicks it off with a bunch of leaf.

The praying mantis that was in my hair!
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

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

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.

On the koala side of the street

They don't call it Koala Street for nothing...

Ocean Roy
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

There's a street here in Port Macquarie called "Koala Street". It connects Ocean Drive with Kennedy Drive and is one of the few streets in Port that has a 60km/hr speed limit (rather than the usual 50km/hr).

Despite the street's claim, I've never personally seen a koala in that street, and so until today I thought it was an arbitrary rather than descriptive label. Then, driving up Koala Street this afternoon, I had a closer look at the side streets off the main Koala Street artery and saw the following names loom up at me in quick succession:

* O'Briens Road
* Treetop Crescent
* Tasman Road

The side streets have all contributed names to koalas that have been brought into our care at the hospital; to wit:

* O'Briens Road > O'Briens Fiona
* Treetop Crescent > Treetop Boxer
* Tasman Road > Tasman Rose

The koalas admitted to the hospital are given two names: the first is the name of the street (or town) where they're found; the second is the name of the person who found the koala or contributed to its rescue.

I was reading the Country Energy newletter the other day and it had an article about a rescue rescue they helped out with. Country Energy (CE) brought in their cherry-picker (or elevated work platform, as they call it) to help retrieve a koala from a tree overhanging a busy road and near overhead powerlines. Chris Rowland, from the koala hospital, assisted in the rescue, but the salvaged koala was named after Roy Morgan, a CE employee.


From Country Energy's wildlife page.
"Roy" was rescued from the corner of Ocean Drive and Koala Street so they called him "Ocean Roy"; I guess "Koala Roy" would have been stating the obvious! Anyway, it proves they don't call it's called Koala Street for good reason!

Joeyfest: Links VTR & Ocean Kim

I murmur my little cajoling words -- "possum", "sausage", "precious pie" -- to persuade Links VTR that I'm not trying to blast him off the gunyah with a hose.

Ocean Kim & Barb
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Back on the Friday shift, I walk into the day-room and greet Peter. Barb strolls in casually, a joey clinging to her shoulder like a human baby. It's Ocean Kim who's been having tick trouble lately and has been doing a shift in ICU. You can tell Barb has mothered a few joeys -- the way she walks about the room with Kim cradled comfortably in her arms testifies to years of koala-whispering. She's one of the handlers who does joey home-care. A dirty job but someone's got to do it.

Barb is gently berating Kim for naughtily trying to climb up onto her roof. There's been some changes. Burraneer Henry has moved in with the other joey, Links VTR, in yard 4. Earlier, Ocean Kim had been transferred from ICU to Burraneer Henry's old spot, yard 1A, the joey showcase; but Barb has just found her scaling the tarp and there are fears she might try to escape. She's (supposedly) one of the wild joeys and is used to hanging out in the high trees, regally surveying her audience whenever one gathers beneath her.

Barb sits at the dayroom table and feeds Kim with a syringe. She jokes to Cheyne that she should really be paddling Kim's bottom for being such a naughty koala, but instead she's apparently rewarding such behaviour with a feed of formula. (By the way, I'm certain Barb would no sooner paddle a joey's bottom than cut her own arm off.)

I decide that I could stand by and gush at little Kim all day, but I really should begin my duties. I'm assigned all the joeys today. No feeding unfortunately, but I still get to see them at close-range. Anne says, "so, you've got all the orphans today?". Links is now sharing with Henry, who is barely visible at the top of the yard's gum tree. Barb has already replaced Links' recycled leaf with a bunch of Nicholli -- she knows their favourite leaf, just a like a mother would.

I haven't really done a yard before on my own, other than the joeys. I'm usually in the aviaries or ICU. I rake around the perimeter and refresh Links' water bowl. Barb emerges still cuddling little Ocean Kim. She's decided that Kim, Links and Henry can share this yard for the time being. Links is munching on the new nichollii leaf as Barb deposits Kim onto the gunyah. Links reaches his paw out and touches Kim as she climbs aboard. They then move together and kiss noses as we stand around gushing at this precious display. They start to share the leaf until Kim wanders off to the end of the gunyah that connects with the yard's tree. Then she's gone -- bounding up to the highest branches. The tree is forked at the top -- Henry is ensconced on the right fork and Kim on the other.

Ocean Kim joins Links VTR
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Anne is making ready the yard nextdoor for O'Briens Fiona, otherwise known as Fiona Houdini, the wiley escape artist. She's moving Wonga Innes to the yard closest to the exit -- they didn't want to put Fiona there since naturally she will be looking for any way to escape outside the yards. This way, if she does get out, it will be into another yard. Anne tells me a little about Links VTR's background. He used to be in yard 6 with the other joeys, but he fell from a tree during a storm and hurt his nose. Links' nose is disfigured after his tree-freefall. Apparently Cheyne used to have to mop his little schnoz every day. It now sports an indentation since it's partly hollow. Links VTR isn't interested in climbing since his accident. It was hoped that the other joey might set a good example for Linksy, but he remains on the gunyah, even climbing down to just above the ground where he can keep a better eye on me.

Links VTR
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I do recall Links being much friskier when Anna was here though. I was servicing Kempsey Carolina's yard next door and kept seeing Links darting up the beam that connects his gunyah to the tree. He'd scramble up the beam and then onto the tree only to shimmy down to the ground again. The handlers put soft bags at the bottom of the tree to break his fall should he take another tumble. I remember watching him scale his way to the ground only to sit there for a while, as though he wasn't sure what to do next.

Leaf bundles
From koalawrangler's gallery.

The leaf man is still sorting the leaf so I check with Anne if it's okay to start on the joeys (since one of the koala kommandments is to finish one yard before proceeding to the next). There is a huge kookaburra in the yard; I've seen them before in yard 6, so there must be something there they like to eat (hopefully not koala). There are no joeys to be seen -- they must be up high. They have four pots of leaf for the three of them. I do a good rake around their yard -- you're not supposed to do more than a rake's-width perimeter, but there is koala poop everywhere so I reckon a more thorough sweep can't hurt just this once. I empty the dried leaf and poop in a bucket and look in on Ellenborough Nancy (the extra-wild koala from yesterday who swiped at me). She looks so sad with her weepy left eye. She's much quieter today though, perhaps the towels Peter hung up yesterday have calmed her.

I start preparing the joeys' leaf -- like growing children, they make short work of their leaf each day, and leave their leftovers in a messy state. The branches are all broken and bent like they've been trampled. I separate their new bundle into three and refill the recycled pot with leaf from yesterday. Links must be famished because he leans towards me as I bring the new leaf in. He gets stuck into it straight away, which makes it a little hard to hose the leaf down without wetting him as well. Apparently, koalas don't like getting wet very much. I murmur my little cajoling words -- "possum", "sausage", "precious pie" -- to persuade Links that I'm not trying to blast him off the gunyah with a hose. Barb has also put aside a special branch of Nicholli for Links, Henry and Kim. Their pots are almost bursting so I share a bit of their leaf with the other joeys.

With all the orphans attended to, I check with Barb what needs doing next. I had seen Jo leaving the aviaries with a bagged koala earlier and I have half a mind to suggest that I work on the aviaries, especially if one is in the treatment room; it's far easier to clean a koala's aviary when they're not in residence. It's so crowded in there with human/leaf/koala all competing for space. But I don't, since I prefer working in ICU anyway and Barb says I can continue in there. There are a bunch of new koalas -- Belleview Bill and Ocean Roy. The vets had to treat Condon Geoff, the climber from yesterday, but they left him in the transporting box while his unit is being cleaned by Judy -- he's too much of a flight risk!

I start on Warrego Martin's unit, where I can see my own handiwork from yesterday. He's docile and welcoming as ever. I go off to prepare his leaf first so that I can make a presto-chango swap when it comes time to do the towels. My plan works like a charm again -- remove leaf at end without koala and replace towel there; replenish that end with new leaf to coax koala away from dirty towel end and so focus on that end. All the while, Martin is still peeing and pooping so it's a good thing that I leave the clearing of the newpaper until last. There is a tonne of poop in his unit so he's obviously eating a lot; I can hear him chomping on his leaf. It's a such a satisfying sound hearing an animal 'happy' (if that's not projecting too much). Well, helping to meet its basic needs anyway.

After Martin, I start to empty the old leaf into the leaf skip. As you can imagine, there is a lot of leaf to be disposed of in a given day. Every day. Old leaf is first chucked on the ground (as you are working to complete a yard), then it is turfed into a green wheelie bin with the front cut out of it. This is then wheeled to the leaf skip and said leaf hurled into it. The leaf gatherer empties the skip after his leaf collection each morning. Sometimes this means there are two wheelie-bins full of leaf sitting where the skip used to be as well as piles and piles of loose leaf lying where they've been chucked (in the absence of the skip).

Today, the skip's newly emptied and I'm hurling bundles of old leaf into the top of it and thinking how much I used to hate gardening as a kid. Ivy day was the worst. The house I grew up in was literally choked in heavy ivy; the kind with white leaves with green splotches. It grew on the patio railings that surrounded the entire house. Once a year or so, Dad would crank up the chainsaw and hack the ivy back to the bare roots and we kids were enlisted as labour. This consisted of emptying the patio of its towering piles of leaf and branches and depositing the piles into green garbage bags. I remember telling my brother one year that I had a cold so I couldn't bend over to pick up the leaf since it would make my nose run. I've been thinking obout that ivy-clearing today and how much that felt like hollow work; whereas, schlepping the old koala leaf is something I approach with vigour. I find myself returning to this theme often: some activity that I usually dislike is transformed into earthy, soulful work when it is being done for the good of the koalas. Either that or I've just grown up a bit.

I start to help Barb hang out the towels that have just come out of the washing machine, but she orders me inside to have a cup of tea. There may be koalas to attend to but the tea-break is sacrosanct. Carol, who looks after fundraising is laying out mugs as Barb cuts up a custard-filled tea cake. I tell her I may be able to get a mobile phone donated to us that I thought we could auction off at the upcoming open-day in April. She's thrilled by the idea. Cheyne is also going to collect poop in a jar and count the number of "nuggets" (Geoff's term). People can then pay to guess how many bits of koala poop are in the poop jar.

Jo starts to talk about some of the patients. That little lamb Oxley Jo isn't eating her leaf. No! I don't know what that will mean. I ask Jo about her research work. She is doing research on koala disease. I want to ask her if they use the same drugs to treat koala Chlamydia as is used on humans, but the conversation turns to Cloud and the article that appeared on her in the Port Macquarie News on Wednesday. Jules is in and he tells us that Cloud also has an obituary in today's paper.

I go out to check on how O'Briens Fiona is settling in. She's not on her gunyah or anywhere else to be seen. Finally I see her in the corner of her yard. She's snuffling about on the ground, then stands on her hind legs against the fence. She's probably trying to work out how to escape. Fiona Houdini, the master, in action.

O'Briens Fiona plotting her escape
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Anne asks me to clear up Bonny Jude's yard. He's been released today so the yard needs to be fully emptied of leaf etc. I scrub the pots and turn them upside down in their holders to indicate the yard is ready for re-use. I notice Judy carrying a bagged koala towards the aviaries. I tell her I'll help by opening the cage door. It's eepy Links Lorna. Both her wrists are bandaged where they've taken blood. Fortunately, there are canulas in to make drawing the blood they need for analysis less traumatic. It's part of the research to gauge how much of the drug is making it into their bloodstreams. I remember Warrego Martin's wrists were like that when I first met him.

I stop at Oxley Jo's aviary and tell her I want her to start eating her leaf. Perhaps we're just not giving her the variety she likes? Koalas definitely have their favourite kinds; I notice that when I'm discarding the already-munched on leaf taht it is usually the same kind. They leave the other varieties that they're less keen on. Oxley Jo looks at me intently like she half expects me to throw her in a bag. Like I'd do that :)

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