Leaf buffet

I realise I'm staring at Oxley Jo too long because she starts to eep at me weakly which, roughly translated, means "rack off" in Koala.

Oxley Jo
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I've doffed my teamleader training cap today. I pretty much understand what's required from a process point of view (although I reckon I'd have to get in at 4am to give myself enough time to decipher the leaf before the morning shift starts). I know how to check the boards and make up formula. What I lack is experience at the koalaface, the bagging and picking up of said koalas. It'd be really handy for me to go on a rescue to get the no-dress-rehearsal experience of trying to nab a koala for admission to the hospital.

Fortunately (for the koalas, but not for my nabbing skills), there are fewer koalas on the ground getting themselves into strife. Mating season has ended (although tell that to the horny lads in ICU) and we're into the cooler months, meaning koalas spend even more time doing essential koala activities like sleeping, eating, weeing, pooping and more sleeping. Presumably, after the frisky summer months, there are many pinkies and joeys being incubated in their mums' pouches, ready to make their appearances in the spring.

Cheyne reports to Amanda that Walcha Barbie has taken a turn for the worse in the last 24 hours. I take a peek at her unit and she's asleep in her basket on the floor, not on her gunyah. Cheyne asks Amanda to pulverise some leaf, presumably to mix in with her formula, to ensure she's getting enough nutrients. She was doing so well these last few weeks, despite her injured arm. I think Cheyne even took her home with her last weekend to ensure she had round-the-clock care.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

My name is on the board for yard 10 so I grab Tractive Golfer's food pot and leave the dayroom. Amanda is breaking off nicholii leaves and depositing them into a dish. "Making a salad?", I enquire wittily. "Yep, hold the feta and olives", retorts Amanda.

The first thing I notice about yard 10 is that Ocean Therese is missing! She was slated for transfer to the Walkabout Wildlife Sanctuary's koala refuge and it's finally happened. Her absent yard is a sorry sight indeed; you could always count on Therese to lunge her furry little face towards you in a (seemingly) welcoming way. She would beseechingly lean into you when on the lookout for food; but, upon realising it wouldn't be forthcoming, would curl up and return to sleep. She'd really developed her climbing skills since being in yard 10a, something she had to improve before she could be shipped out to her new home.

Morrish Steven
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Only Tractive Golfer, Oxley Jo, Lookout Harry and the new transfers from ICU -- Morrish Steven and Innes Tony -- remain in yard 10. Golfer's down on his gunyah snoozing, but takes some interest in the profferred syringe. Unlike Therese, Golfer acts like he can take it or leave it, like the whole feeding process is something superfluous that we handlers do for our own amusement. He's a leaf man through and through, as will soon be made apparent.

Vanessa joins me in yard 10 and we talk about the reduction of numbers. She's sad to have missed Sandfly Jye. He became quite a favourite with the vollies for his insistent scampering behaviour.

The Wednesday maintenance crew have worked their magic -- there are now individual hoses in each smaller yard: no more traipsing down with the interminably long hose and the mad dash back to turn it off in between leaf sprays.

Morrish Steven
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Vanessa starts on Lookout Harry's yard while I head down to visit Morrish Steven. He's fast asleep and begrungingly flickers awake as I potter around his yard. I've decided that he's quite the yawner. When a koala yawns you realise how infrequently you see the inside of their mouths. They're usually closed or barely open while the back teeth pulverise their leaf. The only other time they open their mouths is when they're eeping in annoyance or discomfort. You can almost hear the sound I'm talking about, it's rendered so palpably in Birthday Girl's expression in the shot below. Obviously O'Briens Fiona had gotten too close to Birthday Girl for her liking:


O'Briens Fiona tees off Birthday Girl
From koalawrangler's gallery.
So yawning is a rare opportunity to see how gummy their mouths are. Steven looks almost human when he does it; and right now he's got an audience of tourists snapping away at him. Rightly so; he's a handsome marsupial. He's less "grabby" out here in the yard, but he shares Therese's penchant for head lunging. He's curious and wants to know why you're in here and what's in it for him.

Morrish Steven
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I collect some of yesterday's recycle leaf from outside the leaf shed and make up a new recycle pot for Steven. He rushes towards me on his gunyah as I bring the bouquet in. He treats it like fresh leaf and tucks straight in. He seems to stop and stare at me at one point, even pausing his leaf-munching to look intently. Either that or his eyes are simply glazed over with leaf pleasure and I have ceased to exist.

Vanessa has made quick work of Harry's and Tony's yards. Tony has adopted Sandfly Jye's former high perch. He doesn't seem to sleep much; he's always on lookout. You can tell he doesn't move much from there because all the leaf tips within easy nibbling distance of the perch have been chewed down to the stalks. I would wager there's a concentration of poo right under that tree fork and nowhere else.

Innes Tony
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Vanessa finishes Tractive Golfer's area and I start on Oxley Jo's. I have to remove her recycle pot which leaves her looking like a bump on a log. She's straddling her forked branch with both paws like a stilt-walker. The pads on lower paws clutch the branch, looking almost froglike. I realise I'm staring at her too long because she starts to eep at me weakly which, roughly translated, means "rack off" in koala (see Birthday Girl, above). I quickly create a towering recycle pot to return Jo to her leafy privacy.

There's some recycle leaf left on the rack down near Morrish Steven's yard. Suddenly Tractive Golfer appears out of the nowhere and starts nibbling at the overhanging leaf. Despite his scoliosis, he manages to shimmy up the wooden leg and onto the leaf rack and settles in for a buffet of leftovers.


Tractive Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.
The new leaf is ready and we start the production line of replenishing the yards. To complicate matters, Tractive Golfer decides he's more interested in our fresh leaf and we have to completely remove all the leaf from the rack and beckon Golfer towards his own gunyah so that he'll let us prepare the others' leaf.


Tractive Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.
There're always lorikeets fluttering around this tree in yard 10. Today they're especially noisy. I realise that the protruding knot in the tree above the leaf racks had filled with water and the birds were using it as a bath. One disappears into it, emerge with drenched feathers, shake itself and preen. Then another shows up and does the same thing. Then one squawks and they squabble with each other. I reckon one of them must have jumped the queue.


Bathing lorikeets
From koalawrangler's gallery.
Click here to view the rest of today's koala hospital snaps.

Bye Jye

...beware vets harbouring injections. Sounds like something you'd read in an animal fortune cookie: Confucious say, wise koala beware vet with sneaky needle. Caveat Koalor?

Ellenborough Nancy
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I got to the hospital at 8am and was only the third vollie to arrive. I had seen Cheryle walking up Lord Street, so she wasn't far behind. I also assured Pete that Emma wouldn't miss the possibility of a koala photo sesh for the world!

I'm in yard 10 with Jim. He's already up there and has swept Golfer's astroturf and generated his recycle pot from yesterday's leaf. The koala himself is curled up in one of his favourite spots, high in a tree overlooking the yard. He's asleep and looks almost teddy-bearish from our vantage point on the ground.

I start with angelic little Jo who is sleeping under her bower of recycled leaf. First I take the two white pots and reserve the best of these for her recycled shelter. Jo's recycle pot is the the best position to create a flourishing umbrella of cover. When I remove her central recycle pot she still clings nakedly to her central fork, looking up at me with interest as I replenish the pot with newly trimmed and dampened recycled leaf.


Oxley Jo
From koalawrangler's gallery.
She's not the jumpy koala she once was. Firstly, she's been here a little while now so she's gotten used to the daily ablutions we perform around her. And, secondly, she's now post-treatment so no need to beware vets harbouring injections. Sounds like something you'd read in an animal fortune cookie: Confucious say, wise koala beware vet sneaky with needle. Caveat Koalor? I'm dying to give her a little head scratch, but decide I really shouldn't. She's destined for freedom so it's better for her if I keep my distance.

Oceanview Terry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Jim's just raked out Lookout Harry's yard and is now in with Oceanview Terry. He's produced a spray of leaf studded with sprigs of flowering swamp mahogany for Terry's recycle pot. Terry returns the favour by plonking his bum down in the centre of it like it's a leafy beanbag.

We pause to reflect on the latest absentee from yard 10: Sandfly Jye was released yesterday (as was Koalasaurus Inches). We'll both miss little piggy-nosed Jye. Jim has a theory about why he used to chase us around so much. Jim reckons Jye must have been used to human society in his home-range. Perhaps he lived near a school or where he was around people. Did Sandfly Jye have a people posse? He certainly seemed keen for companionship the way he would leap off his gunyah and barrel towards anyone who would enter his yard to clean. Jim said he also submitted to a tick check the other day, seeming to enjoy the attention and the head scratch that went with it.


Ellenborough Nancy
From koalawrangler's gallery.
I head down towards the far end of yard 10 to start on Ellenborough Nancy. Nancy is a changed woman. Not only is her weepy eye looking 100% better, she somehow looks more relaxed out here in the yards after her stint in the aviaries. She looks like a different koala out here in the daylight: her ears are perky and her chest fur is like a gleaming white vest. She watches me keenly when I enter her yard so I keep my distance. Unlike Jye, she's definitely not interested in striking up a friendship, which is the way koalas should be! As I potter around her yard, Nancy makes her way to the ground. When I look over at her, she is standing upright like a meerkat with her paws folded in front of her. She looks up at the tree as if she's wondering "can I get out that way?". It's covered in a metal casing higher up to prevent climbing.

Ellenborough Nancy's spider
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Nancy sits contemplating her tree until I fill her recycle pot. Because this pot is taped to the branch, I have to schlep the hose down from the other end of yard 10. We can't clean these pots properly; all we can do is squirt them till they overflow to refresh the water in there. With the spritzed recycle leaf, Nancy returns to her gunyah. I recall Andrea's mentioning that Nancy's yard sported a fine specimen of a St Andrew's Cross spider, and there it is suspended against the metal fence.

Oxley Nina
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Yard 10's done until we get the new leaf so I head into ICU. I start on Calwalla Bill's unit, mindful of the warning that he's struck out at a vollie before. He's conveniently down one end so I whip off the towel and replace it. Bill lets me clean his unit without incident and I start on Oxley Nina (the one with the suspected joey in her pouch) across the hallway.

Nina stays out of my way too while I straighten her room (yes, sometimes I feel like I'm a koala chambermaid). All goes well until it's time to mop her floor. At this point, she decides to head down to see what I'm up to. This is less than convenient since I'm standing at the door, mop in hand, waiting to start. She trots over towards me to inspect the bucket. I try to convince her to regain her gunyah, but it take a few minutes of her investigations before I can proceed. Finally, when I think she's going northward, she simply wraps her hands and feet around the lower beam and sits there with her bum poised over the drain. It's the kind of thing I would expect of Ocean Therese.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

While I've been dealing with Nina's shenanigans, the leaf has arrived. I head back to yard 10 where Jim's got the leaf replenishment under way. Ocean Therese has been asleep all morning and only comes to when I enter her yard with fresh leaf. She has a sleepy, squint-eyed look about her. She even eeps a little when I shift her old leaf pot, to my chagrin.

In the dayroom, Pete hands me a feedpot. We were waiting all morning for Tractive Golfer to come down to drink his formula, but he had remained in his tree loft. When Pete was up in yard 10, Golfer had made his appearance. Jim has left already so it's down to me. I ask Emma if she'd like to feed him -- of course she would: it's another photo opportunity.

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

Hospital for...possums?

Anna Bay Miles
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I wasn't able to fend off the non-koala part of my life the last two Thursdays and so missed my koala shift on both those days. (I told Amanda in advance, of course.) So today I'm back giving the understudy teamleader thing a go.

Anna Bay Miles is now in an outside yard looking positively glowing in the morning sun. He is a changed koala. I remember having his wet bottom resting against my smock while Cheyne fed him on the treatment bench. There was quite a stink coming from his wet bottom. His fur was discoloured which can occur when a koala is very unwell. I remember the strange blonde colour of Dunbogan Val's fur, a little koala I encountered when I first started working at the hospital.

As Amanda and I walk about with our leaf chart, I realise that Linksy has moved from yard 9a to his own digs in yard 4, so there'll be no more adorable scenes of joey love between him and Kimmy for us to fawn over.

Jackie greets me with the rhetorical "another beautiful day in heaven" -- I have to agree with her.

Ocean Therese
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm in yard 10 with Vanessa. Golfer is down on his gunyah for a change so I start to feed him, while Vanessa feeds Sandfly Jye. As Golfer feeds, I notice an indentation in his fur. It's a huge tick pulsing near the skin. It's on his arm, so I don't want to risk digging for it. Andrea's doing her rounds in the yard. I ask her to pull it off while I distract him with formula. Even with the distraction, he takes a swipe at a Andrea. She's too quick for him though and comes away wielding the full tick in her fingers.

Ocean Therese is in fine form. She reaches out for me, gently swiping for attention. Beatrice is also helping in the yard. She tells me that Jye is doing something strange. He's sitting in the corner of his yard again, looking like a yogi in the lotus position.

Oxley Jo is curled up like a baby bunting (with the fur wrap built in). She regards me sleepily.


Oxley Jo
From koalawrangler's gallery.
I mention Jye's behaviour to Cheyne and Andrea in the treatment room. Cheyne says it's important to bring it to their attention if we think the koalas are doing something strange. Andrea thinks it's because Jye's bored; he's on the last phase of his treatment and is just marking time before release back into the wild.

We have an early tea break in the dayroom. I ask Andrea about a few of the other patients. I'm concerned about the beautiful Bellevue Bill and his kidney damage. Innes Tony has kidney damage too, but his prognosis doesn't seem to be as poor as Bill's. Fortunately it's not curtains yet for Bill though; he may yet turn a corner.

I ask the other vollies if anyone has seen Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The scene where Borat tries to capture Pamela Anderson in his wedding sack reminded in a comically exaggerated way of koala-bagging (although when we do it, it's a lot less rough!).


Watch Borat bag Pamela!
Provided by Flixster
Actually, when we bag koalas in the hospital, it's usually for their comfort. Sometimes it's easier to feed a newcomer koala by securing the mouth of the bag around their face, or it the bag can be used to shield the koala from something unpleasant like an injection.

Reading the daybook, I see that Jupiter Cheryl and Kennedy Easy have both been released!

Just as I walk out the door towards my car, I hear a voice demanding if I work at the hospital. I turn to see a chap walking towards me with some urgency, carrying a plastic garbage bag before him. He tells me, "I've got a sick animal, but I'm not sure what it is". I usher him quickly into the hospital, calling Cheyne and Andrea to assist. It turns out to be a ringtail possum wrapped in a towel. Cheyne gently examines it while Amanda quickly mixes up some rehydrating liquid to feed the little fellow. As Cheyne checks it over, the long tail curls around the little body. Cheyne gently twirls it away, rewraps it in the towel and places it in carboard box. As with koalas, it's better to hide a hurt animal from the light.

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

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.

FiFi Houdini's final escape

Barb pops her head in the yard and tells me not to start on Links Lorna's yard. Today's the day she's being released. You go, girl!

Links Lorna
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It's good to be back in the koala saddle again, after missing my usual Thursday shift yesterday. Being Good Friday, we're down a few vollies; plus there's a few rescues and releases to take away the human resources from the usual servicing of the yard. Barb reckons it's shaping up to be one of those fridays. The kind where you plan to finish at 10, and then you're there admitting new koalas until lunchtime.

Judy is telling Mary about the latest on Walcha Barbie. She's developed a problem ingesting her leaf. She's hungry but not able to keep the food down. They're going to start pulverising her leaf so that she can eat. Judy's talking about Barbie like she's right here in the room. It's then I realise that she is -- she's basketed on the dayroom table, quiet as a mouse.

Oxley Jo
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I'm in yard 10 today with Ashley, although he's likely to be called away on a rescue. First off, I feed Tractive Golfer, who's on his gunyah and snuggled into yesterday's leaf. Jo starts making her rounds in yard 10, checking on the koalas' progress. I ask her about little Oxley Jo, the princess of yard 10, since it looks to me like her wet bottom has 'dried up' a little. Jo says she's spent a little longer on the trials than usual. She wasn't responding initially, but has just turned a corner, delivering a negative result for Chlamydia on the test they do. Jo attempted to explain the test to me, which would give CSI a run for its money. Something to do with gel and chain reactions. I cross my fingers for her that her treatment continues to be a success; she's such a darling.

Jo also tells me something that hadn't occurred to me: the koala admissions quieten down in the winter months. It's out of mating season so they're not taking the same risks roaming from place to place.

Tractive Golfer
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I start to sort out Tractive Golfer's leaf and then Ocean Therese. Golfer makes it easy for me, climbing up a nearby tree leaving his pots free to change. Therese reaches out to me in case I have formula. She's still slated for relocation to a wildlife sanctuary, but apparently the transfer requires both Department of Agriculture and NSW Parks & Wildlife approval. Suits me fine; I'll be sad to see her go. She's such a gentle girl. I give her head a little stroke before I go. Barb pops her head in the yard and tells me not to start on Links Lorna's yard. Today's the day she's being released. You go, girl!

Speaking of removals, I see that Warrego Martin is gone from his usual yard. I knew he was in the post-treatment monitoring phase, but it's still a surprise to see he's been released. Like I expect a phone call advising he's to be released today: did I want to come in to the hospital and see him off? Perhaps a cake and streamers? :) Warrego Martin was one of the koalas I first encountered in ICU. He's come through his system of treatment and is well enough to re-enter the koala community as a healthy male. You can see his photostream here.

I've taken some of yesterday's leftover leaf from outside the leaf shed to use as shelter for Oxley Jo's and Sandfly Jye's recycle pots. There's some good sweeping nicholii to give them some added shade. Some visitors are snapping away at Oxley Jo, but she turns my way when I enter her yard. The new leaf is here already, even before I've made a good go at the yards in yard 10. I quickly replenish Jo's leaf and in the process knock Sandfly Jye's feed pot off the leaf rack. I make up another pot in the dayroom.

Lookout Harry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Ashley's back from the rescue and goes in to feed Jye. He then makes a good dent in the rest yard 10. Lookout Harry makes off up his tree as Ashley cleans. I notice that Harry still has a small leaf branch attached to his bottom; it looks like he's sprouted roots. Ashley whips through three or four of the yards, stripping out one pot of old leaf in each until he's called away for another rescue. The rescue from this morning was Orr Palmerston, a former patient, who needs to be re-released since he's okay.

Barb comes in with a bag and asks if I want to give bagging a go. It's been a while and I should keep up the practise. It's time to go...Linksy Lorna! Lorna is sitting peaceably on her gunyah; she's become much less of a stress-monkey. I remember when she was first in ICU and she would utter an eep! when anyone came near her. Barb tells me to pop the bag over her head and she starts eep again, but not in alarm; it sounds more like indignation. With Barb's help, she's in the bag and halfway to freedom. Yeah!

Oceanview Terry
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I carry on with the other yards. It's good to see Oceanview Terry out here. He was in the aviaries for quite a while; it's always great to see koalas graduate to that next level of freedom, a step closer to recovery and release. As they all do, he's perched as high as he can get on his gunyah, overseeing the yard. When I replenish his leaf, he doesn't even move position, preferring instead to stretch lazily towards whatever leaf he can get from his forked tower.

Judy comes in to see if I need any help. Following Ashley's system, I've been replacing the leaf but not sweeping the yards, leaving that till last. Judy graciously assents to being the poop-sweeper for Jo, Harry and Jye. She then gives Links Lorna's old unit a good clean, blasting the gunyah clean with water.

There's still a unit to do in ICU. Chris, Tracy and I chip in, then I go and fold some towels in the yard. Back in the dayroom, I flick through the dayroom to see when Warrego Martin was released. There's been a lot of movement with admissions and releases. Cathie Sampson, the older koala I've been tending to quite a bit lately, was put to rest. His prognosis was not positive, so I'm glad he's out of any discomfort now.

O'briens Fiona
From brokenpuzzle's gallery.

I'd seen earlier that O'Briens Fiona was no longer in the aviaries, which made me think that the cheeky FiFi Houdini must have been released. Sadly though, it turns out that she had put to sleep. She was an aged koala and had already demonstrated her difficulty surviving in the wild after release, judging by her weight loss upon her readmission. She had been sitting low in her tree and was underweight.

How I will miss her! She had such a vivid personality and a frisky way about her. She would bound up to us wranglers, eagerly demanding formula and foisting herself upon anyone who was a potential feeder. Yet this endearing facility was actually debilitating to her; her inexplicable hyperactivity was not merely unkoala-like, I'm guessing that it also contributed to her weight loss. Koalas are docile and sleep 20 hours a day for a reason. She was expending more energy than she could take in. I couldn't help but shed a tear when I read the news, but I'm glad that Fiona has made her final escape to that elusive gumtree in the sky where she's relaxed and feasting on leaf and formula!

Hindman Foxie
From koalawrangler's gallery.

There's another new koala from the Newcastle area, Anna Bay Sooty. She has notes on her, warning us handlers to give her a wide berth as she is particularly nervous and wary of human attention. She also has a pinkie in her pouch. A baby on that way. It makes things seem hopeful for the koalas.

Carol's in the treatment room feeding today's newcomer, Hindman Foxie. She was last in the hospital some six or seven years ago. Her left eye is completely clouded over; I'm not sure if this is permanent or curable. She's also got a joey in her pouch! Foxie's taking in the liquid Carol's feeding her. She's now in good hands.

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

National Koalagraphic

We're getting a bit of blue gum lately. I call it Skippy leaf -- according to my dusty mind records, it's exactly the kind of leaf that Sonny Hammond used to blow against to summon Skippy the bush kangaroo to the (usually improbable) rescue in the eponymously titled TV show.

Links Lorna
From koalawrangler's gallery.

I get in at 7am again today, Thursday. I'm continuing my teamleader training with Amanda. The concreters are at work pouring slabs around the edge of yards 1a, 2, 3, 4, 5 and part of yard 9. Just in time for the koala hospital open day on Saturday 7 April 2007.

Amanda has already checked that all koalas are present and accounted for inside in ICU. Like last time, she draws up a matrix with the acronym for each leaf type in columns across the top and the name of each outside koala down the side. Teamleaders only read leaf for those koalas directly in the care of the hospital, not the ones being monitored by the uni researchers. We then head out to the yards and attempt to determine which leaf is flavour of the month and which isn't.

The different types of leaf flummoxed me when I first began at the hospital. Several weeks of cutting and stripping branches on every shift has produced a gradual familiarity. Now I'm astounded by my growing ability to recognise different eucalypt types. I can pretty much tell apart Tallowwood, Nicholii, Melaleuca, Swamp Mahogany and Blue Gum. Swamp Mahogany is always a koala favourite -- for the koalas around here anyway; a koala from a different part of Australia would probably eat a different array of leaf, depending upon what is available in their home area.

We're getting a bit of blue gum lately. I call it Skippy leaf -- according to my dusty mind records, it's exactly the kind of leaf that Sonny Hammond used to blow against to summon Skippy the bush kangaroo to the (usually improbable) rescue in the eponymously titled TV show. Skippy was the after-school staple from my childhood. (You can see the scintillating opening credits to this iconic piece of kitsch 1960s Australiana here.)

I should qualify that I can generally pick the different leaf as long as each is in a nice single branch, but not necessarily when they're cut up and bunched together in the pot. It's a bit like being able to recognise whole heads of lettuce -- cos, iceberg, mignonette, romano....and then having to 'read' said leaves from within a mesclun salad. And 'reading' the leaf is what we have to do.

When we head into yard 10, there is koala on Tractive Golfer's gunyah and it's not Tractive Golfer! Yard 10 is a large open yard with a small circular yard within it that houses Ocean Therese. There are also about six smaller yards that run along the periphery of yard 10; these yards contain some of the koalas being monitored by Sydney uni researchers.

Tractive Golfer, one of the hospital's long-term residents, has free run in the main area of yard 10. He has scoliosis, producing a distinctively misshapen spine, whereas this unfamiliar koala is small, has normal spine curvature, and female -- judging by the tag in her right ear. Wait a minute! It's that tricksy O'Briens Fiona a.k.a. FiFi Houdini! Before I start wondering by what rare feats of magic she got from yard 9 (her most recent stomping ground) to yard 10, Amanda explains that, according to the whiteboard, Fiona's just been moved into the circular enclosure in yard 10 with Ocean Therese. She's obviously managed to scale her enclosure to make it into the main part of yard 10 (so still safely captive within the hospital). There she is sitting there happily chomping on Golfer's leaf.

There's a fine line to be trod between confining the koalas securely, but still enabling them the open-air environment they covet as wild animals. Most of the time, this balance works beautifully: the koalas enjoy both a secure outside existence in the yards while they still receive the best possible treatment and care. In Fiona's case, she seems to be a born roamer, and like her famous namesake Harry Houdini, is an expert at escapology.


Amanda & O'Briens Fiona
From koalawrangler's gallery.
By now Fiona has made her way to the ground and is coming towards us, ever after that elusive formula. Amanda mutters that she wishes she had a towel so that she could pick her up and redeposit her in her correct yard. "How 'bout my smock?". I whip off my koalawrangler smock and it works a treat. All koalas present and accounted for in their correct yards.

With the leaf checks done, I scatter the collection boxes around the yards. The morning troupe is trickling in. Vanessa and I are doing yard 10 together today. There's a couple of photographers here from National Geographic who are snapping away as we work. They're especially interested in the feeds. I go in to feed Sandfly Jye and wonder how my hair looks (like is there a huge green insect in it like the other day?). I'm mostly carrying on with my work as usual, except that I feel a little self-conscious cracking off superfluous stems at the leaf-rack with a photographer clicking away right in front of me. Now I know how the koalas feel when I'm on shift. Should I "vogue" or something?

Oxley Jo
From koalawrangler's gallery.

When I carry the wet leaf into Oxley Jo's yard, the photographer's compadre interrupts and asks if I can enter at less than a breakneck speed. And can I walk around the gunyah the long way. Okay, shurrrrr. I wonder what captions will appear under these photos. They dutifully copy down our names and the names of the koalas. I wonder if I'll be listed as "Oxley Jo" or "Links Lorna" by mistake.

Cheyne is giving "how to feed" refresher training to all the shifts this week. The first koala I ever fed was Kempsey Carolina. Her feeding style is pretty unique and I had to make it up with every new koala since, so it's good to understand the right way to do it. Cheyne has Anna Bay Miles to demonstrate on. The two most important things appear to be how much of the syringe you place in the koala's mouth and how fast you squirt. Only the skinny tip of the syringe should enter the koala's mouth, even though they may try to draw the wide part of the syringe in. Sometimes they chew on the end too; this makes sense since chewing is the natural way for them to eat, not slurping on a plastic tube. However, letting the koala chew on the syringe increases the likelihood that they'll bite a bit off -- not good. Although they will often try to pull the syringe to the front, it's place to slot the syringe tip along the edge of the koala's mouth between the front and back teeth. Their left-hand side is usually best since most people are right-handed and therefore feed from that side.

The other important aspect of feeding is not to force the formula out too quickly. No-one wants liquid syphoned into their mouths like a firehose -- including koalas. Drinking the formulat should be a pleasurable experience -- they should be allowed to enjoy it!

When I return to yard 10, I glance over to yard 9 and notice that both joeys in 9a are bunched up very high in their tree. Wow! Linksy is really climbing now, like a real koala. I'm happy-sad about it; glad for him that he's koalarising along with dehumanising, but sad that it spells his imminent release. I don't think he weigh enough yet though, so we'll have him for a while longer.

Before I go, Tricia points out Oxley Westi in a lounge pose. They usually let their limbs hang or stretch them out when they're trying to cool down.


Oxley Westi
From koalawrangler's gallery.
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.

Diary of a koala-feeding platform

The koala in the bag weighs a tonne, but I hold him out before me like the precious cargo he is. I have a momentary fantasy about being a swagman with a purloined jumbuck in my tucker bag.

O'Briens Fiona
From koalawrangler's gallery.

It's regular koalawrangling duties today, not teamleader training, so I start at 8am with the usual Friday crowd. Barb's friend Colleen is here and we are teamed together in yard 9. I'm glad about this since I'll get to see what antics our Fiona gets up to today.

I hear that Innes Wonga slated for release so his arthritic leg must have healed. There's a flurry of activity as vollies grab their respective feeding pots and head out to their assigned yards. Lucky Wiruna's and Birthday Girl's pot food is mixed up, but not O'Briens Fiona's or Bonny Fire's. Barb tells us that the latter two are still up trees. I tell her about yesterday's shenanigans with Fiona; I have a hunch she'll be down in no time once she sees the others being fed. Using my newfound formula-mixing skills, I quickly whip up her double dose (they're trying to fatten her up since she was underweight when re-admitted). I also grab a towel on the way through ICU; I'm determined not to be a koala's pin-cushion today.

In the yard, we locate Wiruna Lucky and Birthday Girl without too much trouble. Birthday Girl isn't on her usual gunyah, but she's much bigger than either Fiona or Bonny so I'm sure it's her. Lucky is distinguished by a splotchy pink nose, so is easy to spot. Colleen takes Lucky, donning some yellow washing-up gloves before she starts. She's obviously taken one look at those koala talons and doesn't want to risk a scratching. I take Birthday Girl, who eats gratefully.

O'Briens Fiona
From koalawrangler's gallery.

With a few syringe-fuls to go, I spot some fuzzy movement out of the corner of my eye. It's Fiona descending her tree as if by clockwork. In no time, she's bounding over to where I stand feeding Birthday Girl. Obviously, I can't crouch (to discourage Fiona from climbing me) and feed Birthday Girl at the same time. O'Briens Fiona is insistent; she wants her breakfast, and she plans on being irritating until she gets it. I give in to Fiona's urgency and ask Colleen if she'll finish feeding Birthday Girl after Lucky.

Grabbing Fiona's pot and a towel, I walk over where there's some raised astroturf under a gunyah, thinking it will be more comfortable than the crouched position I assumed yesterday. I sit down and cover my arm with a towel, expecting Fiona to sit beside me like any normal koala. But, no. My body is no impediment to Fiona's hunger and her wiley ways. She walks straight onto my lap like I'm a horizontal tree with some tasty swamp mahogany leaf in my fingers. I quickly stick the syringe in her mouth and she starts sucking away. Her claws are resting on my chest and I'm grateful for my smock as an added layer of protection. I may have avoided becoming a koala pin-cushion today, but I'm certainly a koala-feeding platform.

Fiona's sitting on my lap and I'm thankful the towel's under her in case she decides to pee. She's so light, she feels no heavier than my cat. I hold no illusions about this being an intimate moment between us. Her brown eyes are glassy and I know I'm nothing more than a tree trunk with with food on offer to her. I have to pause to refill the syringe and Fiona reaches for frantically for it, brooking no delay. I also feel that this is somehow wrong; I should be avoiding human contact with her as she's a wild animal. I generally don't touch the koalas at all, even to pat them on the back, since I'm aware that what might feel inexpressibly soft to us can be a form of invasion to them. But the feed is under way and I resolve to finish it before extricating myself.

Once the pot is dry, I lean to the side and Fiona slips off neatly onto the dirt. She shimmies up the nearest tree and assumes the position for the rest of the day...until the afternoon feed, that is. Bonny Fire shows no sign of coming down so we set about the yard duties. There's two recycle pots, which we replenish with the best of yesterday's leaf and place next to Lucky and Birthday Girl so that they have shelter while they sleep.

Ocean Kim
From koalawrangler's gallery.

Kimmy and Linksy in yard 9A are down from their trees and snuffling about in yesterday's Nichollii, their favourite leaf. We rake their yard, but leave the leaf until the fresh stuff arrives. There's little to do until the leaf-collector cometh, so we head to the day-room for a cuppa.

Jo emerges with a bag and asks if I'll bag Sandfly Jye. My teamleader/handling training continues. Jye is seated on a high fork in his gunyah and I'm wishing I were a foot taller as I fling the bag over his head. He resists, predictably. This time I've got a hold of his forearms as I've seen the other handlers do. I tell this to Jo and she instructs "well, pull him off". Jo's standing back letting me do it all; there's no point it wimping out and letting the more experienced one help. It's a bit like pulling staples out with your fingers; he's stuck to the wood like glue. Somehow or other I manage to get him off and enclosed in the bag. During the whole process, I'm murmuring a litany of soothing words, trying to stave off the koala's fear. It's funny how you do some things automatically. I hand the koala bagful over to Jo. I asked jokingly if she thought the verbal encouragement helped. "Well, it helped you anyway", she says.

I return to the day-room, triumphant. Soon enough, Jo reemerges from the treatment room toting a heavy bag. They've finished with Jye; can I return him? He weighs a tonne, but I hold him out before me like the precious cargo he is. I have a momentary fantasy about being a swagman with a purloined jumbuck in my tucker bag. I gently lower Jye to the ground of his unit and open the mouth of the bag to let him find his way back. He ambles out, slightly disoriented, and seeks out his gunyah for comfort.

When the leaf does arrive, there is a strange leaf I haven't seen before. The bark is papery and black, and the branches zigzag at crazy angles. It sports fluffy yellow flowers like bottlebrush and has the most intense lemony-camphor smell of any eucalypt I've come across. Danae views it suspiciously, but Barb assures us that the koalas love to eat the flowers. It's a melaleuca, which gives me bittersweet memories of poor Melaleuca Alfie.


Links VTR
From koalawrangler's gallery.
The joeys in yard 9A, bound down from their tree and tuck into their leaf. Barb comes out to check on Links VTR. She has a word to me about O'Briens Fiona. Next time she does the crawling act I should just pick her up and plonk her on a gunyah to feed; we don't want koalas trying to crawl over people in the street looking for formula once they're released... Now that I'm more adept at handling them, it's probably something I could feel comfortable doing. Ask me to pick up a koala last week and it would have been a different story.

Barb makes off with Links VTR in her arms in order to weigh him. He's perched over her shoulder looking at at the world just like my cat does. When he returns, we learn that he's just under 3.5kg. They won't release him until he gets more comfortable with climbing. Barb explains that Links just doesn't display the usual koala desire of wanting to be high up in a tree. He would prefer to be down low where there's the eucalyptus version of a Sizzler salad bar. He's even developing a bit of a paunch.

Barb & Links VTR
From koalawrangler's gallery.

As Barb returns him to the tree, she places her hand under his bottom and tells him in a mock-berating tone to climb up the tree, not down. Linksy reaches out his bent little nose and sniffs her. I know it's not an affectionate gesture, but it really looks like one from our human vantage point.

With the leaf pots all replenished, I rake up the excess and dump it at the leaf skip. Jo is passing by on her way to yard 10 with another empty bag, this one destined for Oxley Jo. Do I want to bag her? I'll just have to give up on Oxley Jo wanting to be my best friend. She's a little easier than Jye to bag since she's so small, like a big joey. Jo stands in front of her to distract her while I sneak up on her behind with a bag. I pop it over her head and she starts to eep wildly in protest. I feel for her wrists again and try to wrench them as gently as possible from the gunyah. I recall that if you pull them slightly apart, the koala has to let go. She sort of drops into the bag at this point, and I let the bag ease to the ground. Her bottom is wriggling out the mouth of the bag and I scramble to close it around her.

Jo says I've done a good job. The main thing is not to drop the koala! Check! I think I'd probably throw myself under a falling koala before I'd let that happen. She also says that you can have all the koala-bagging experience in the world, but a bagging can still go wrong. I should take heart at this.

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.