On The Rescue: Koalas Up Trees

At 5:30pm, Georgie (the young and beautiful owner of Kingbilli) knocks on our door.

“Any
chance you guys would like to help me wrestle a koala out of a tree in
Alex?” No sooner than the words are out of her mouth are our dinner
plans put on hold, our shoes are on, and we are piling eagerly into her
car.

Koalas
are not particularly active in this area until the summer, and as such,
we haven’t really seen one yet. So the opportunity to help rescue one
is just too good to pass up.

Now
Koalas in trees aren’t usually bad things; that’s where they live. Look
for well-concealed blobs in tall eucalyptus trees, and you’re probably
looking at a koala. But a koala in the middle of a city/town,
surrounded by yards full of dogs, and curious people who try to capture
or feed the koalas (and feed them improper foods that tend to kill them
rather than help) spells trouble. The biggest threat are the dogs,
foxes, and other ground-dwelling creatures that will attack the koala
when it climbs down the tree and move across the ground to other trees.
So a koala spending time in urban areas is a ticking time bomb. Hence –
the need to rescue it!

As
dusk is settling in, we arrive in Alexandra and begin our koala chase.
With the help of some bystanders, we are quickly able to locate it, and
chase it up a tree. Chasing it up a tree isn’t exactly the preferred
result, as we consequently have to go up the tree after it, but that’s how it ends up going.

Kelly
& I, feeling more like dead weight than the rescue-helpers we
envision ourselves to be, stand at the base of a mean looking tree with
blankets and cages as Georgie adeptly climbs it. Her intention is to
aggravate the koala enough so it comes down the tree, at which point
either I expertly convince it to jump directly into the cage (right),
or Kelly expertly throws a blanket over its head and picks it up under
the arms (right).

“The
idea is not to let it get away and up another tree,” Georgie says with
a knack for the obvious. Although it is valuable information, it only
serves to make us feel even further out of our element and stressed
about not letting a pissed off koala get away.

As
an aside, let’s talk about koalas for a minute. Although Georgie loves
working with them, she likens them to grumpy old men. With brains that
are literally the size of a pea, they aren’t very smart animals, and so
everything they do is very simple and obvious. You almost always know
what they want and how they’re feeling. There really isn’t much of
anything going on behind those little beady eyes. No really. Nothing.

They
eat eucalyptus leaves, which are actually poisonous, so Georgie figures
with all the toxins in their systems, they can’t afford to be too
smart. When she goes to feed them in captivity, she says they basically
throw open the door, glare at her, grumpily say “where’s me pudding!”
and slam the door again.

One
day, a koala Georgie had been working with for about three months was
leisurely taking its meal from her hand, somehow knowing that Georgie
was in a rush and consequently taking its sweet time. And looking
directly into her eyes, it sunk its very long very sharp claws into her
other hand. She maintained eye contact with the bugger as it managed to
leave claw wounds about a centimeter deep in her hand, neither of them
flinching. Grumpy, grumpy old man, he was.

So that’s the deal with koalas.

Most
of the koalas Georgie rescues are unhealthy in one manner or another –
which is often why they need rescuing. So today, as she sits about five
meters up this mean looking tree, she expects that it won’t put up too
much of a fight.

She
rattles the branches. It starts to move down the tree, at which point
Kelly & I spring into action. But it’s a false alarm, as the koala
simply moves to an adjacent branch and climbs back up higher. Georgie
herself leaps to an adjacent branch, and attempts to capture it with a
net on a telescopic pole and one leg wrapped around a branch for
stability. Only the koala is up to her game and leaps to another tree
entirely.

This koala, as it so happens, is pretty healthy, and doesn’t want to be caught.

Now
quite aggravated, the koala starts vocalizing its frustration. Demonic
sounds start to come from high up this eucalyptus tree. Sounds that
can’t be reproduced. Disturbing sounds of exorcism. A possessed grumpy
old man burping and farting and snorting the way only the devil itself
could.

Once
back on the ground, Georgie sizes up the next tree which she’s
determined to climb. “At least this one will be a little easier,” she
says as she eyes the lowest branch, almost two meters off the ground. I
would have thrown up my hands long before this point, and am suitably
impressed with her Amazon tree-climbing prowess.

Once
again about five meters (or more) up this tree, she attempts to wield
the net to get the little demon still uttering its inexplicable sounds
that nightmares are made of. It continues to climb higher up the tree.

“Poor
little guy. You are really upset now, aren’t you,” Georgie says
lovingly as it replies with a guttural grunt that comes from hell
itself. “I wish you’d come down. This is not a good place for you to
be,” she continues to coo.

As
darkness sets in on us, and we don’t have the torches, ropes, or
harnesses that are required to continue on, Georgie reservedly
acquiesces. “This is only the fourth time I’ve not been successful in a
capture since I started so many years ago,” Georgie observes of her
years in wildlife rescue, obviously frustrated. “The real problem is
that this little guy isn’t going to last long if we don’t relocate it
to a better place to live.”

So
although we don’t get a chance to get up close and personal with the
koala, we get a good look at it up the tree, and of course, we get more
than an earful.

Oh
yes. And the crème de la crème: koalas have terrific little defense
mechanisms in case they are being chased up a tree. They urinate all
over their followers.

Georgie
by this point has nonchalantly shed two layers of clothing that are
covered in urine, like she does it every day. (Actually, in a way she
does. She has been spit at by llamas, kicked at by horses, bitten by
donkeys, clawed by koalas, scratched by possums – the list goes on.
She’s quite used to the abuse by now, and understands these outbreaks
as the animals’ way of communicating). But Kelly, dear Kelly, on this
fateful day, has learned a valuable lesson about koala rescuing:

When standing underneath a koala that is in a tree being rescued, don’t look up…with your mouth open.

Very strong mouthwash is now on our grocery list.

This post was originally published at Life Happens. Please click on the link to stay up to date with the latest of our adventures!