Koala care pays off

IT’S hard to imagine now, but at the beginning of the year the story dominating the headlines wasn’t the corona virus, but the record-breaking Australian bush fires. The fires destroyed homes and communities and also caused severe damage to the country’s unique wildlife.

Some of the most stirring images were of firefighters and animal lovers rescuing severely burned koalas. Now several of the animals who were injured have been re-released into the wild.

The marsupials were being treated at the world’s only all-koala hospital, located in the New South Wales town of Port Macquarie.

One of the most famous of the group is Anwen, a female whose photos went viral due to the severe nature of her burns — they covered 90 per cent of her body. She was the third patient admitted to the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital in October last year.

Now, though, she is joining several other koalas who have been resettled at the Lake Innes Nature Reserve in New South Wales, which is on the state’s Tasman Sea coast some 235 km (146 miles) north of Newcastle.

Anwen (pictured right) is one of 26 koalas to be returned to their habitat over the course of a week. Hospital employees carefully considered a mix of koala ages and sexes in order to make for a wellrounded community — especially since they hope the animals will breed and grow their population in the wild.

But it wasn’t only the koalas who had to rest and heal. Though the Lake Innes area was badly damaged in the fires, higher-thanexpected amounts of rainfall made it possible to release the animals sooner than planned.

“While we are all facing difficult and uncertain times, this incredible story of hope serves as a reminder of the resilience of our incredible flora and fauna and people,” Phillipa Harrison, Managing Director of Tourism Australia, said in a statement.

Tourists aren’t heading to Australia at present, but there are still ways to support the koalas from home, namely the hospital’s adopt-a-koala online programme.