One cannot come to Australia and leave without having received a koala hug. In fact, I had no other major plans for Brisbane except to visit the famous Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary with its hundred or so koalas. It certainly didn’t look like much up front, there were no brightly colored sculptures nor nicely paved walkways, and only a few plain signs that showed the general direction of things.
On the way to The Barn I passed the end of the Birds of Prey show, and the trainer was just bringing this beautiful sea eagle (hawk?) out. When he was young the eagle was found injured and lost by someone who thought it would be nice to take care of him. Unfortunately by the time the animal controls people got involved the eagle had gotten so used to humans and being provided food that it would no longer survive by itself in the wild. So it will spend a comfortable and adventure-less life at the sanctuary instead. Lesson learned: do not take care of injured wild eagles when found.
I followed the signs that led to The Barn since there was a sheep shearing show starting soon. This was something I missed in New Zealand, and how wonderful that I would get to see it for free here! The show started with two sheepdogs who were more than excited to show off what a great job they can do, chasing the sheep wherever their master wanted to go, and lining them up in the pens.
Then, the master demonstrated how to shear a sheep. The poor thing was pulled from its pen and flipped on its back, and numbly allowed the shearer to cut off its furry coat. I’m pretty sure he was happy for the shave given the 100 degree heat we were enduring.
After the show, I slowly drifted towards the koala sanctuary, but found this pleasant surprise — kangaroos by the dozens! They are quite gentle creatures and contrary to popular belief have little interest in boxing me or their peers. You can buy food to feed them, but since they’ve been fed by many tourists all day, most of them were quite indifferent.
I must say this is the first time I ever came so close to a mommy kangaroo with a baby in its pouch. It looks quite cramped in there.
Did you know that kangaroo babies are called joeys? In less than 33 days after conception, the neonate crawls out of mommy kangaroo’s tummy into the pouch and stays there for 6 months before it starts coming out. It takes about 8 months for the joey to actually leave its cramped home and live by itself. Considering the wild kangaroo only lives for about 6 years, that’s a long time to live at home! For animals anyway. It appears that the human race now spends more and more time living at home before making it into the real world 😛
Then last but not least, we have the koala bears! Except they are not actually bears. Did you know that koalas are also of the marsupial family, which means they are actually distant relatives to the kangaroo? They are one of the laziest animals on the planet, sleeping 16 to 18 hours a day, and spending 3 of their 5 waking hours eating eucalyptus leaves. They chose poorly in their main food, since these leaves have little nutritional value, which results in them not having much energy to do anything else.
Since so many tourists want to take pictures with the koalas, it’s almost like a job. They don’t seem too happy about it though, as I watched this one koala turn his head away from the camera 4 or 5 times before the caretakers switched him out. Since they get so stressed out about being touched, each koala can only work 30 minutes a day.
There aren’t too many koalas left in the world, as they’ve been hunted for their fur, attacked by dogs, hit by cars and a bad case of chlamydia (yup, the same STD in human). I’m glad I got to meet one up close and personal, and keep this fond memory with me 🙂
Leave a Reply