I’m one of 120 volunteers who help to care for sick and injured koalas at the Koala Hospital Port Macquarie, NSW Australia. I’m not a vet, scientist, or animal specialist — just someone who can’t imagine Australia without koalas in it. You can help us help koalas by Adopting a Wild Koala!
Showing posts with label One Mile Beach Noah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label One Mile Beach Noah. Show all posts
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's not easy being the only boy koala occupying a single tree with three girls. Just ask One Mile Beach Noah.
As a relative newcomer to yard 6, Noah has made his home in one of the lower forks of the yard's tree. The spot has become a favourite for him; you often see him flopped in the crook of its branches, arms and legs dangling like a happy sloth.
Trouble is, this fork is a bit of major thoroughfare, especially when new leaf has arrived. Today, Helene was distributing leaf into the several pots strewn around the gunyah in yard 6. Oxley Holly (I can tell it's her by her nose) decided she was heading down for a gander at the smorgasboard.
But Noah was having none of it.
Noah wouldn't budge so Holly shimmied down the main trunk and wedged herself in front of Noah (where they gave each other a bit of a sniff). Then, when Holly didn't vamoose her caboose, he gave her a warning nibble on the shoulder.
Holly eeped a little and then clipped Noah over the ear before taking off up the tree again.
It was time for Holly's Plan B.
Her next tactic was to reverse down the tree...onto Noah's head. She sat there on Noah's noggin for a bit, before he gave Holly her final marching orders.
Nowendoc Carl is looking a million bucks after his operation to remove the inflammed tissue from his eyes. The right is still cloudy, but the left is much clearer. He looks much better just being out in the yards and "upstairs" (on the top part of the gunyah), rather than looking lacklustre on the bottom rung as he did inside. His fur, which was a dun-brown colour on admission looks to me like it's got some healthier grey flecks coming through, or perhaps that's just from seeing him in the sun for the first time. He's much brighter and grabbier too - he managed to wangle the syringe off me at one point (to the amusement of the watching visitors) and attempted to feed himself with it to no avail before submitting to my giving it another go!
Poor Emerald Matilda, the blind koala from last week, was euthanased. Another blind koala, Banksia Ted, has come in to be assessed. There is also a Lighthouse Di who is just the cutest looking thing, who might be entering the Sydney uni trials as she is a wet bottom.
Click here to see more photos of this week's koala patients recovering at the Koala Hospital, Port Macquarie.
Up until August 2007, the hospital had been aflush with joeys; there were always one or two little orphans being left to grow and build up their "koala skills" in the safe environment of yard 6, pending release. Lady Nelson Woody, Belah Irwin and Oxley Lucky were residents in the joey yard when I started back in January 2007, soon to be joined by the delightfully frisky Links VTR and Ocean Kim and, later, the more demure joeys, Lake Christmas and Siren Gem.
But since Christmas and Kimmy were released in August last year, there had been a dearth of joeys at the hospital, leaving we poor vollies without a single joey to gawp at. Visitors and volunteers alike always like to see the babies, but it seemed that the joeys had "dried up" for a few months.
Then October came (the busiest month for admissions to the hospital). One joey arrived, then another, then two more! Lo and behold, the nursery yard was full again!
Settlers Inn Casey (more pics here) The first joey to grace us was Casey, who was reported to the hospital by patrons of the Settlers Inn Tavern in October 2007. They had observed Casey in a palm tree near the beer garden and thought she looked a bit young to be out on her own. At only 2.4kg, Casey had probably been orphaned or just recently abandoned by her mother. Casey was found to be in great physical shape and so seemed to be managing well enough on her own...for now. She was near a busy road with quite a bit of unkoala-friendly construction going on nearby.
Generally, when a joey is about 12-18 months of age, the mother leaves the juvenile to make their own way in the world, but typically keeps a watchful eye from a nearby tree to see that the youngster is doing okay. We decided she would be better off placed in the joey yard where we could keep an eye on her progress. After a week or so she was found to be infested with ticks, which can cause anaemia if not attended to. Casey was then regularly checked for ticks and returned to her tree...this time with a squirt of the tick repellent usually used on dogs.
Oxley Holly (more pics here) Casey was on her own for a few months when, in early January 2007, she was joined by Oxley Holly. We had received the startling report that a koala was walking along the busy Oxley Highway near the local high school with a joey riding on her back! Even more surprisingly, the koala was Oxley Westi, a koala who had come 11 months earlier with abnormally protruding eyes. At the time, it was suspected that she might also be carrying a pinkie - an unfurred joey. Westi's appearance now with joey in tow, proved this to have been the case. Oxley Holly was a healthy female joey weighing in at 2.25kg. Unfortunately, Westi was now completely blind and had to be euthanased. So Holly joined Casey in yard 6, like her, to grow in a safe environment before she can be released.
William Krystal (more pics here) Less than two weeks later, another joey was admitted in rather interesting circumstances. A gentleman was leaving the pub one Saturday evening when he noticed, to his surprise, a small koala waiting at the lights on William Street in downtown Port Macquarie. The lights changed and apparently this young koala set off across the road. The gentlemen gathered up the joey and proceeded to cuddle her for the next two hours (don't try this at home!) before contacting the hospital. Krystal was likewise in fine condition, weighing 2.67kg, and joined the other two girls in yard 6.
One Mile Beach Noah (more pics here) Finally the three girls were joined by a 2.7kg male joey transferred to us from our friends at the Native Animal Trust Fund in Newcastle. Noah's mother was hit by a car on Gan Gan Road in the precinct of Anna Bay, while Noah himself was rescued unharmed from nearby One Mile Beach. Although Noah had been well cared for in homecare, the NATF did not have the facilities to care for a growing joey. Like the rest of our brood, Noah just needs to finish his weigh gain, get climbing practice, and dehumanise prior to release.
Like any growing children, the joeys are currently eating the hospital out of house and home! Casey and Holly were initially sharing one bundle of leaf which is usually sufficient for one adult koala. When the other two joeys arrived, this was doubled to two bundles. In the mornings, the leaf pots would be stripped of their leaf, the tops mown down down by hungry joey jaws overnight. Recently, a small gunyah extension was erected in yard 6 to facilite the placement of extra leaf-pots to satisfy the appetites of these growing youngsters.
But who's who in the zoo? (which joey is which?) The joeys are surprisingly easy to tell apart when you know what to look for. Noah has a soft sleepy look about him and his ears are less round and perky. But telling Noah from the three girls is easier than comparing ear shapes - the girls each have a green tag in their right ear, whereas Noah has no tag (he will be tagged in his left ear before release). If you get close enough you an also see that Noah has little furry testicles emerging.
Where the girls are concerned, it's a question of noses. Casey's nose is broader at the top than the base, while Holly has just the opposite - a broad base and narrower top. William Krystal's nose is narrower than both the the other girls and maintains a generally uniform width at top and bottom. Krystal also has pale grey fur, lighter than the other joeys. You can see what I mean in the pics below:
I filled in as teamleader for the first time this week. Amanda is on holidays so I'm being 'her' for three whole Thursdays in a row.
I'd shadowed Amanda several times in the past and even then I'm not one to leave things to chance: I typed up a checklist spelling out everything I had to do, step-by-step.
7.01 Make sure alarm is off - check. 7.02 Turn on lights - check. 7.03 Make sure all koalas present and accounted for in ICU - check. 7.04 Unlock leaf shed - check. 7.05 Make cup of tea. Jiggle bag. Discard bag. Add milk. Check. Check Check. Check. etc.
You think I'm kidding? I'm not kidding - it was painstakingly detailed, especially the part about the tea. I was leaving no room for error. The Idiot's Guide to Koalawrangler Teamleading - a must for every library.
Nothing was going to get stuffed up.
Not on my shift.
I even created a template in MS Word for me to use when copying down all the current koalas' names, yard numbers and formula requirements...complete with columns for charting the amount of the 3-4 varieties of leaf each koala had consumed over night (both fresh and recycled).
I went round checking each yard one by one. In the joey yard, I counted three only joeys until, with delight, I noticed one little one asleep in the leaf down on the gunyah haloed in morning light. Someone had gotten up for a midnight snack and fallen asleep in the pantry. It was One Mile Beach Noah, an orphaned joey sent up to us by our friends at the Native Animal Trust Fund. They didn't have the facilities to care for a joey, while we have a fully equipped joey nursery with three other joeys to keep Noah company while he grows. When he reaches a suitable weight, he will be returned to his home at One Mile Beach.
I knew it was Noah since he's the only boy and so he doesn't have a tag in his right ear like the other three girls. When I discovered him there, he looked up at me with the groggiest expression - he was still in the land of nod.
There's been a significant change to yard 9: no Birthday Girl. Thanks to some new wonder drugs (well, wonderful as it turns out for her), Birthday Girl had recently gotten a new lease on leaf. With her newfound pain relief Birthday Girl would think, "Tall tree? No problem!" and, suddenly, no tree was too tall. After being a gunyah-dweller on the mend, she became the yard 9 tree-climber extraordinaire. The trouble was, by staying up in the tree, she wasn't getting her twice-daily formula, nor her daily medication which facilitated her climbing abilities in the first place. Furthermore, she missing out on her usual array of freshly trimmed leaf...
Something needed to be done. We needed, oh I don't know, a band of professional treeclimbers...and that's just what we found. These chaps generously gave of their time and skills, climbed, bagged and brought our Birthday Girl back to earth. She is now safely ensconced in yard 7 on her own, where she can easily continue her treatment. So Bonny Fire has all of yard 9 to herself...she doesn't seem to mind.
After I've checked all the koalas' leaf and poo, it's time to make up the formula. I've done this many times before, so it's a straightforward process. Jan, Jarred and an international vollie, Lisa, is there. Trish arrives and automatically heads for yard 9, somewhat taken aback about the new "separate bed" arrangement for Bonny Fire and Birthday Girl (who've been bunking together for simply years now).
Robyn is supervisor today and, as there's little treatment work to be done, she's happy for me to lend a hand in the yards. I join Jan in yard 10 where there are currently four koalas: Tractive Golfer, Oxley Denise, Hamlyn Bev and Granite Murray.
The beautiful Hamlyn Bev (who is back with us after being virtually raised at the hospital as a joey) is presently sitting on the ground, after having spent the last 10 minutes gambolling about her yard, trying to drum up a feed. She's never backwards about letting you know she wants formula. Apparently the cheeky little sausage bit Peter on the knee the other day to hurry up her tucker... Little scamp! Of course, she can do no wrong in our eyes...
I'm glad to say today's shift went well. Phew!
Click here to see more photos of this week's koala patients recovering at the Koala Hospital, Port Macquarie.
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.
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.
