One Day Koala Keeper Training Program
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2006
1
25
55
Trip End
Ongoing
Brisbane,
Australia
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Just to give you an idea about the place, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is the world's largest koala sanctuary and has over 130 koalas. It's about 11 kms from Brisbane so we took the bus and got there for 8:00 am. Once we arrived we met up with Tanja and she started showing us around right away. Our first stop was the hospital. There were a few operating rooms on one side of the building and the other side had rooms where the sick animals are kept for observation. We also visited the kitchen and watched some of the workers prepare the food
Lone Pine
. We even got to see inside the freezer but I won't go into details... Tanja then brought us to one of the enclosures where the younger females were and showed us how to weight them. She brought out the cutest looking scale. It looked like a tree in the form of a V shape. She put the koala on it and of course it just sat there because they love to grab on to things. She explained how they must count the animals every day and also showed us how to tell them apart.
We then continued to the kindergarten enclosure. That's where they keep all of the young joeys. They were so cute and we got to touch everyone of them. After that, we visited another place where they keep the males and she explained how this one koala in particular loves to climb up on the keepers. I didn't even have a chance to turn and there he was trying to climb up on me. I was in koala heaven! The keeper unhooked him from my t-shirt and placed him back on me properly. I could have stayed there all day. He was just like a baby that loved to be cuddled... sound familiar?
We had our pictures taken with a koala and then had lunch. After that, we met up with Tanja and watched the sheep show. The farmer talked a bit about his border collie and then let him loose to round up the sheep. When they were all together the dog jumped on top of them and just stood there, you could tell he was very proud.
Right after that, there was a bird show and Tanja asked if one of us wanted to participate
Lone Pine 19
. Of course, Tim was very excited about that. There were some owls with the most amazing eyes but the best were these two falcons. When asked, Tim got up and put on a glove. The keeper then had the bird fly right onto his hand. It's amazing how big they are when there wings are spread open. After the show, Tim and I were aloud to hold the owl and the falcon. We even got to bring them back to their enclosures.Tanja then showed us where they grow the eucalyptus. There's over 600 species but koalas only eat about 20 of them. We then made our way towards the older kolas where I got to feed one using a syringe. We were told that as they get older they have a harder time chewing and don't get as much nutrients. Towards the end of the day we had our pictures taken with a python and held these feeders where hundreds of birds would come and feed.
The keeper program was a great experience. I was finally able to hold a koala and dream come true.
