Caring for our animal pals
FRANKIE the koala casually ambled past while Phillip Island ranger Jess McKelson talked to Kids News about life on the newly reopened island, where she looks after world-famous little penguins, Australian fur seals, and currently koalas like Frankie.
A subadult male approaching his third birthday, Frankie is one of 13 koalas still recovering after being rescued in January during the devastating Mallacoota bushfires.
Celebrating World Environment Day, Ms McKelson said the COVIDrelated closure of the island had been challenging but had delivered many positives as well.
“For the conservation world, it’s also a great opportunity for everyone to get involved and focus on our environment and our land management,” she said. “We’ve been able to do a lot of work, including revegetating 6ha of penguin habitat.
“It’s been really important for us to get in and do that. And also it’s so good for my team and myself because you get to connect with nature, not sit at home in the confines of your house during this period.”
The island’s star attractions might be little penguins, but they represent a very big picture, assisting Phillip Island’s conservation management team of 36 to understand what is going on down in the big blue.
“My favourite thing about working with penguins is that it represents more than just the penguin. It represents the ocean and marine life. They’re a key species for us to understand how healthy our ocean ecosystem is,” Ms McKelson said.
“It’s healthy. We know that. We understand how our penguins feed and we know how much fish they consume.
“Every night they go across a weighbridge — we call it the Penguin Highway — and we’re able to monitor their weight every night.
“And that shows us they’re healthy weights, we’ve got a healthy ecosystem, and we’ve got very healthy penguins.”
As someone who always wanted to be a ranger and conservation manager, Ms
McKelson was working with orang-utans in the swamps of West Borneo when her dream job came up 2½ years ago.
“I was rehabilitating orphaned orang-utans.
“You see these animals that have been smuggled and you see what they’ve gone through, how resilient they are, and when they’re released back in the wild, doing what orang-utans do, there’s nothing better,” she said.
“I came back to Australia knowing that I wanted to give more and do more for our own backyard so it can be in a better place.”
But back to those long-term visitors, Frankie and friends, who are now enjoying the full VIP treatment during their Phillip Island postintensive critical care. A huge new facility is being built for their final stages of rehabilitation before they’re released.
“Our job is making sure they’re getting the right diet,” Ms McKelson said.
“So they’re eating a lot more than what an average koala would eat, just to build up their nutrition. We ensure that the facilities that they’re in at the moment are easily accessible and they don’t have to come down to the ground and climb up another tree.
“Some of them lost their nails — they melted and came out, so they’re regrowing and we check them to make sure there’s no infections.
“Each week we do a muscle check to see how much of their muscular capacity they’re building back, which is really important if they’re climbing or sitting up high.”
The final stage of rehabilitation takes place in the wild, up in the canopy.
The Phillip Island team hopes their furry friends will be ready to go back to a safe home by spring.
Ms McKelson is stoic about saying goodbye.
“It’s a second chance at freedom. They’re the lucky ones, and it’s really important for the local community to have these animals back. It’s part of their identity,” she said.
“They’ve been through so much, the community and the wildlife, and it is really important to send them back home.”