How to catch a koala
I am getting a bit sick and tired of this blog, and feeling like it's all a bit meaningless amongst the general noise of blogs (and meaningless in and of itself too) and I keep reading blog posts of what other people think other people's blogs are supposed to be, which make me groan and not want to do it anymore. But, there are things out there, dear readers, that other blogs just aren't telling you how to do. So, at least for this post, I am going to soldier on for the good of humanity.
What it is that I need to be the person to tell you is, how to catch a koala.
However, don't try this at home. For starters it's illegal. You can't mess with wildlife without a licence. And even though I'm your friend, if you do I will bust you, because that's what a good National Parks and Wildlife Service employee would do (just here disregard the fact that I no longer am one).
Secondly, wildlife ecology is not for the weak and faint-hearted. It takes bravery, courage, fast reflexes and a certain kind of animal instinct that not all possess. And catching koalas is, above many other things, a stage production in which one can reach dizzying heights. See here:
That's my friend Dave from university days up the ladder, and there's a koala up there somewhere. What one has to do to catch a koala is go where koalas go, so that's up the tree, with the help of long ladders and abseiling gear. You then use a long pole with a (very sophisticated) plastic bag on the end (the blue thing visible here) to herd the koala down the tree. This is done by waving it about over it's head. The idea is that you try not to create too much of a stir, even though you've broken into the house with a plastic bag on a pole, and the koala backs calmly right down the tree. But people stand around with catching gear just incase the koala doesn't do it right and jumps.
I had to stop taking photos of the action unfortunately because I was required to get in and help, to the shouts of "Ali you get the baby", which was coming down on Mum's back. You have to get the joey off before Mum hits the ground or you're in big trouble. You have to get Mum before she hits the ground too, or you're still in big trouble, but you need to prise baby off first.
Thirdly, koalas have the sort of claws that can haul 10 kgs of them up a tree, and the kind of teeth that can snip clean through a eucalypt leaf at the front, and the pulverise it at the back (go home and see if you can do that with your own teeth). If you think koalas are cuddly because you held a tame one in a zoo, you haven't the foggiest. Wild ones are nasty!
This one looks cuddly because it's anaesthetised.
This one is cuddly because it's only teeny.
And this one is especially cute and cuddly because it's like a toddler koala.
What we were actually catching them for was to monitor the impact on them of the Logan Motorway, up in Queensland, which was new at the time (this was 2001). Koalas are not endangered. That is a spurious myth - and the fact that it is red-listed as a threatened species in America is ridiculous. The list of marsupials in this country in much graver danger of extinction is too long to mention. However, this particular population is vulnerable and was threatened by this road, so we were investigating. So they were tagged, then marked temporarily and released.
Those were the good ole days. I think I need to go climb a tree somewhere.
