In December last year WIRES (Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service) was called to help a small koala found at
Waterview Heights with a bad case of conjunctivitis.
Lizzie weighed 3kg, but while quite thin and underweight the size of her
head and her sharp little teeth showed her to be still very young, probably not
long having left her mother and already running into trouble.
Waterview (a rural residential area west of Grafton) is a known hotspot for koalas where residents look out for
them and keep them safe. But koala food trees are limited in the urban setting
and a young koala can have difficulty finding unoccupied habitat for itself.
Also this was a time of protracted drought, when smatterings of rain were doing
nothing to raise the moisture in the leaves koalas' depend on. As the summer
temperatures rose, so did the number of koalas coming down from the trees,
severely dehydrated, empty-gutted, and most unable to be saved.
Lizzie's vet examination showed her to be free of urogenital chlamydia,
which usually means cysts and euthanasia for female koalas. An ultrasound check
showed her kidneys to be normal, and blood tests and swab samples proved her
only problem to be the ocular chlamydia and corneas severely altered by the
infection.
Being young and viable Lizzie was accepted for the costly treatment and
started on a 28 day course of injections and eye treatments. Quite early on it
looked likely her sight might be saved, but still there was a long battle ahead
to save her. A finicky eater from the start she never seemed hungry, her
hydration levels were difficult to maintain and on hot days she would stop
eating altogether. The majority of harvestable leaves were from trees that had
suffered a disastrous fire a few months earlier, so were young epicormic
growth, low in protein.
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| Lizzie ready for release |
Lizzie was started on koala milk, which predictably she turned her nose
up at, but with a small drop of eucalypt oil and a pinch of high protein powder
added she took to guzzling it very nicely. Then for a day or two she would
start to pick up, before another searing day knocked her down again. In time
she started lapping water, which made things easier, but she would never look
for it and would drink only if it was put under her nose. When the forecast
predicted above 32 degs temperatures she was back in her hospital cage in the
cool bathroom.
In more ways than one though this little girl was different to the rest.
She became the first koala in our branch to be cared for locally through the
full chlamydia treatment to its clearance, and her eventual release.
Previously, with no knowledgeable koala vet in Grafton and the wildlife
hospitals an inaccessible distance away in Queensland, our branch practice was
to rely heavily on the wonderful staff of the Lismore Friends of Koala group
and their almost-specialist koala vet at the Keen Street clinic. When a koala
was delivered there, it stayed there, with the vet on tap and a team of
volunteers to gather trailer loads of leaves and administer treatments, and
long experience to help the koalas safely through their ordeal
This time though, with our environmentalist-trained vet Ray Barnett
ready to help, the arrival into the Valley of WIRES' State Koala Coordinator
for morale support, and a sudden access to the Sydney University's new Koala
Heath Hub for medications, specimen testing and free support to koala carers
everywhere, things took on a different slant. With suitable care and
pre-release facilities at Shannondale it was decided we could take her through
ourselves.
It was never easy. Collecting armloads of beautiful fresh leaves every
evening, only to see them thrown out untouched the next evening was upsetting
and worrying. But still Lizzie managed to slowly eke back some of the weight
she had lost, until final tests cleared her of chlamydia and she was ready for
pre-release. Now, with a tree of her own to climb and eat from and a few
supplementary leaves from different species to pick at, she stayed comfortably
sheltered in the pen until the weather finally cooled and a first good rain
shower brought that light at the end of the tunnel. After 3 months in care
Lizzie had gained only 1kg in weight, but she was eating better, looked
healthy, and it was decided nothing more could be done for her. She was taken
out of her pen that evening and left silouetted against the evening sky in the
arms of an old swamp mahogany tree.
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| Lizzie released |
Whether she is a success or not we most likely will never know. But the
very best we can ever do is give them a second chance at life. The rest is up
to her. Good luck little Lizzie, you have had quite a journey.
- Pat Edwards, Clarence Valley WIRES Koala Coordinator
