Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Orphaned Koala..



The little joeys are the best. :-) There are a few of them that were orphaned when their Mom was hit by a car or otherwise hurt. We keep them in a special enclosure until they are big enough to make it on and then they are released within a few miles of where they were found. (Koalas are territorial.)

After lunch the 'leaf guys,' 'leaf-out' all the enclosures and bring in new 'browse!' That's the time of day the koala's look forward to the most. Koalas only eat eucalypus leaves... but there are over 600 species of eucalyptic trees! And of those, there are twenty-some varieties that the koalas eat... big leaves, little leaves, blueish leaves, etc.; each enjoying different favorites. The local name for any one of the species is 'gum tree' - that covers all 600+ species!

2 comments:

Florence A. Dunbar said...

Have you ever heard the children's song "The Kookabura sits in the Old Gum Tree!"?...merry , merry King of the Bush is he....LOL!

Jeff said...

(That must be from your Westside Nursery days... right?)

I've never heard the song before... but Wiki has all the info on the author and how the song came about. Interesting :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kookaburra_(song)