Flesh-eating Koalas

No - they don't eat meat. They can take a few chunks out of your hand if they're cranky or you mishandle them, but they won't attack you. That's just one important snippet of information I felt necessary to dispense amongst the public. Being a certified koala handler, I've decided to write a post to dispel some of the myths about Koalas. Such as:-

#1: At night, Koalas come down from their trees and hunt rabbits and other small land-dwelling animals in packs like the raptors from Jurassic Park.

FALSE: Koalas can run on the ground, but not very quickly. Nor do they hunt in groups - or at all, for that matter. They eat leaves. That's about it. They have sharp claws, though, that when gripped around your finger, can and will go straight to the bone.

#2: Why did the koala fall out of the tree? It was dead.

This has not been conclusively proven. Much more research is needed.

#3: Why did the other koala fall out of the tree? It was hanging onto the first koala...

Possible, but unlikely. Koalas will only ever be hanging onto each other if they're a baby (joey) hanging onto the mum. Other than that, they're really not a touchy-feely bunch.

It has been a while since I've given talks on koalas, but the essential information that I want people to know are -

(a) Koalas are not bears - They're just not. Please stop calling them koala bears. The closest relative to the koala is the wombat.

(b) Telling the difference - The easiest way to tell the difference between a male and a female is that the female will be wearing lipstick, and her fur will be permed. That, or the male has a scent gland in the middle of his chest (in amongst the white fur) that he uses to rub up against the bark of trees and it is brown (from all the rubbing). So the males will have a brown patch, and the chicks won't.

(c) Koala's will sleep maybe 18 hours a day - and this is mostly duringthe day. Unless they were drinking Red Bull, in which case they'd sleep only 10 hours a day. So we often had tourists come up to us in the middle of the day bitching about how the koalas were sleeping. This pissed me off. Actually, without fail, the first thing that they would do is point at the koalas we had in the trees and say "They're not real. They're toy koalas". At which point I would jump across the counter and beat the crap out of them... or at least I wanted to. I heard that at least 100 times a day. The conversation would go:

Idiot: They're not real. They're toy koalas.

Me: No, they're real.

Idiot: You're lying to me.

Me: No, I'm really not. Koala's are nocturnal [actually, that's technically incorrect, there is a different term for it...] and so they sleep 18 hours a day - during the day.

Idiot: Yeah right...

Me: [shrug - don't really care if Idiot and her snotty little kids believe me]

Idiot: Well make it move then.

Me: We don't do that here - if you want a performance in animal cruelty, go to somewhere in Queensland.

Imbecile: Why would it be cruel?

Me: Because it's midday, and as I just explained, this is the period during which the koala sleeps. It would be the equivalent of you waking up your children at 2 in the morning at 15 minute intervals to prove to someone that they're really real.

[Koala moves by flicking its ears]

Idiot and snotty little kids: Oooohhhh! It's moving. It's real!

Me: Uh huh.

And so I would spend most of my day having conversations like that.

(d) Koalas have the coolest mating sound - it defies description. It might freak you out if you've never heard it before - you won't believe that a sound like that can come from such a cute critter. People out in the country who have colonies of koala's nearby don't like it, though, because it does get annoying after a while.

(e) Koala young are known as a 'joey' - much like the kangaroo.

(f) There are two types of koala - northern and southern. The southern ones are found in Victoria - they're butt-ugly. The northern ones are better - so go to either Queensland or NSW if you want to see them. Go to Queensland if you want to hold them, but not NSW, because you need to be certified to do so there.

Click on the picture below for a short slideshow of some of the pictures I took when I was a koala handler.