Here Anika kindly shares with us the stories of orphaned koala joeys she has cared for.

DAVEY

Davey was found in August 2009, weighing 875 grams, approx. 8 months old, abandoned by his mother. Residents said she is an old koala and has been around for many years. Davey came into care with pneumonia, so he was put on medication, but he didn’t present as particularly sickly. He was just dehydrated, exhausted and very hungry. The first few days he was just munching on leaf and he took his bottle really well and also slept a lot. Over the next few weeks he seemed to have settled down, eating enormous amounts of leaf and loving his bottle. A lovely boy with a quiet character and he loved to be outside for the day. In September Davey enjoyed the company of Knight – for as long as it lasted. He seemed sad and lonely when Knight didn’t make it. He took comfort in staying close to “mama bear” (a teddy in his tree). Davey was fast becoming a big boy in the outside enclosure, but still close to mama bear. He was doing really well, although we believed he needed some company and interaction with other koalas. In November we weaned him off his bottle and when he hit 2.5 kg we took him to the Australian Wildlife Hospital where he has enjoyed the company of other juvenile koalas ever since in the Rainforest (pre-release enclosure). Davey is continuing to gain weight and we are looking forward to his release.

JOZEFINE

Jozefine was trying to climb a fence after her mother was killed by a car in October 2009. Weighing in at just 820 grams she wouldn’t have survived in the wild and we were only too happy to have her as a companion for Napoleon. She hardly had any health issues, and was a pleasure to feed. She has a beautiful pink nose and because of her big ears she appears to always have a “surprised” look on her face. Jozefine has been an easy baby from the start, she loved her bottle and would try anything to get it. When she and Napoleon were still living inside they would climb the stairs at night and just play, jumping up and down. We would find them sitting under the table or under a chair when they were tired, but other times they would go back to their inside trees and fall asleep in their basket. Now she is nearing 3 kgs and they are both in our outside enclosure and Jozefine is always taking the lead playing havoc. She is a real jumper and always seems to calculate if she can “do it”. She is very vocal and will tell Napoleon when she doesn’t like what he’s doing, whether it be getting to the fresh leaf earlier than her or clinging to her back when they were younger. They are play fighting at the moment and we are sure she will be one of those females who will choose her own way in life.

KNIGHT

In September 2009 our rescuers received a call for an injured koala. Residents had seen a few youths with slingshots and it appeared a female sitting on the ground was their victim. She died on her way to the hospital but during examination it was established she had a lactating teat. So… there was a joey somewhere! Rescuers spent hours in order to find the little man. Knight had no obvious injuries, was quiet but restless. He was exactly 1 kg and would have been mum’s backrider. We have no idea about the stress he went through but it took him a few days to settle in. He took great comfort in cuddling up with Davey, who was excited to have a little mate. Knight seemed to have problems breathing but an X-ray disclosed no abnormalities. His blood gave no indication of the feared cryptococis, but it appeared there was a very low count of white blood cells. It was obvious he was fighting some sort of an infection, but where and what?  Only 9 days into care his breathing was laboured and he became lethargic, so we rushed him to the Australian Wildlife Hospital where he was put on an IV-drip and was given pain relief. We had no idea what was going on, but the next morning his little body gave up – he died.  Necropsy revealed that all of his organs were bruised….. maybe he was another victim?? We will never know for sure and the people responsible will not be prosecuted...

NAPOLEON

Napoleon came into care in October 2009 when his mother died. He was 695 grams and approx. 7 months old. He seemed healthy, but was very unsettled and it was hard to comfort him, but eventually he calmed down. He has been a reluctant feeder from the moment he arrived, but with a lot of patience we managed to get him to a point where he took his bottle well. He seemed happy when Jozefine arrived a few days later, they have been playing, fighting and eating leaf together ever since. Napoleon has had a few health issues and we had to change him to a different milk formula, but it seems he has grown over most of it.  Now Napoleon and Jozefine have graduated to our outside enclosure, he weighs 2.3 kgs and is eating tons of leaf. He is always the first one to grab the new leaf when it arrives in the afternoon. He can literally strip a complete branch in half an hour, but still loves his bottle twice a day.

NEAM

Neam arrived into care in November 2008; her mother was hit by a car and died on her way to the hospital. Neam was approx 6 months old and appeared to have no injuries and really wanted her milk, but she didn’t like the teat in her mouth. Gradually she got used to it and we took it from there. In her early life she had a few health issues, a bit of pneumonia and at one stage her breathing was really laboured and she had to spend a few nights in the ICU in the hospital.  She recovered and we kept a close eye on her with regular X-rays and minimal stress. During the first few months in 2009 she was doing well, gaining weight and gradually weaning off milk. In April she moved to the Rainforest at the Australian Wildlife Hospital hospital, a huge pre-release enclosure where the juveniles can interact with each other and dehumanize from their (human) mother. She seemed to be doing well, until one morning in June she was found on the ground – typhlocolitis! - a horrible disease that affects the gut and usually doesn’t present with anything until it’s too late. Neam spent a few weeks in ICU and it didn’t look good – at one stage we considered euthanasia – but by the end of July we got a little bit of hope that she was heading in the right direction. Neam turned out to be a fighter and she picked up! She had this incredible will to live and in September she went back to the Rainforest where she spent a few months healing, closely monitored. Gradually she started to gain weight again and we are sure she pictured herself swaying in a tree somewhere in the wild after her release. It helped! Just after Christmas 2009 we released her back into the wild. We picked a gully full of blue gums for her and when we opened the carry cage she slowly climbed the tree and within 10 minutes she had nibbled on all the beautiful new tip on every branch. Then she looked down on us and I swear she said to us: “Thanks guys! This is why you and I fought so hard, this is what it is all about! I am swaying in the wind, with acres of trees to explore and the sun on my back.”We cried, but they were tears of happiness and now we can only cross our fingers and hope she will have the life she was dreaming of.

YANI

Yani (his name means “peace” in Gubbi Gubbi Aboriginal language) came into care in October 2009, approx 5 months old, only 386 grams. He was found by himself at the side of a road; his mother was nowhere to be found. A jogger had noticed him the day before but moved on believing he saw a rat. The next day he noticed the rat again and checked it out, only to find this little koala boy. Yani was exposed to the elements for at least 24 hours – maybe more – and it was a miracle that he was still alive with cars, dogs, cats and raptors around. From the first day Yani has been feeding really well, his only problem might be his sight. At his age he should still have been in mum’s pouch and his exposure to the sun caused an ulceration of his cornea. His eyes were glazy and therefore he was put on antibiotics and eye medication – which he hates….. After 10 days we teamed him up with Yooralla, and they were enjoying each others company for over two months. When Yooralla died, Yani was unsettled for a few days. We have no doubt these little ones grieve when one is taken away from them. Three months down the track Yani is a beautiful young boy, very active, very inquisitive, exploring his world around the basket (i.e. our living and kitchen as well) and eating very well. He is nearly 1000 grams and he enjoys being outside for a few hours each day. His eyes look a lot better, some small scar tissue is still visible but we are confident that will heal in time.

YOORALLA

Yooralla means “love” in Gubbi Gubbi Aboriginal language. This little girl was still in her mother’s pouch when they were picked up by rescuers.  Mum was anaemic, covered in ticks and had every koala disease possible. The Australian Wildlife Hospital’s policy is to try and keep mum alive in order to raise the baby (as we can never do a better job than mum does) but in this case there was no way we could save mum. So it was decided to take Yooralla from the pouch and try to do our very best in raising her. She was only 230 grams, approx 4 months old and would normally spend another 2 months in mum’s pouch. Yooralla was a difficult feeder, sometimes she loved her bottle, other times she didn’t want it. We fed her pap when she was ready for it and she seemed to like that. She was slowly but surely gaining weight, but she had a few health issues which is not surprisingly considering all her mother’’s health problems. We were trying our very best and we could only hope that would be good enough. She was living in the basket together with Yani who was very protective of her. In December she started to explore her little world outside the pouch and with Yani setting the example we were confident Yooralla would follow suit. In the first week of January her feeding problems started again and no matter what we tried, she was not feeling well. We gave her pain relief as it was clear that she was not a happy little koala. Then one morning the vets decided to do some exploratory surgery to see why her body was reacting the way it was. We gave her a general anaesthetic and put an IV drip in her little arm. Then she stopped breathing….. we tried mouth to nose, CPR and adrenaline, but Yooralla had given up. Necropsy revealed that she had a necrotic lesion in her caecum. This is something we could have found with surgery, but would we have been able to save her life? We don’t know as she was still such a little girl weighing only 500 grams. In a very weird way the knowledge of what was wrong with her, made her death easier to accept because at least she was not suffering anymore.