One of our Dorroughby FOK members got a call on Christmas Eve from Peter, her neighbour, about a koala he thought was sick. Peter sees koalas regularly on his property and had one before that taken into care. The koala he was concerned about was sitting in a small frangipani tree near his house only a metre off the ground.
She was a large healthy looking female with a good coat, clear eyes and no wet bottom, and we named her Evie. There were concerns that she was too quiet and too easy to handle. She was taken to our carers home and set up in the bathroom for the night with loads of leaf, by 9.30pm she had eaten all of it and was provided with another lot. Overnight she ate that too and amused herself by pulling all the towels off the rails and bath and stomped all over them.
Christmas Day she went to the friends of the Koala Care Co-ordinator for further assessment. Evie was too quiet for a big female koala in beautiful body condition with no signs of disease and as she was not an old animal there was no reason for this unusual behaviour. A healthy koala should be fighting to get away, not happy to sit there and have a pat.
We held concerns for Evie as FOK have had other koalas present similar to her, from the same area, and they have been diagnosed with retrovirus. Retrovirus causes a loss of a koalas immune system and any effected koala does not have a good prognosis. We were crossing our fingers that this was not the case but decided Evie should be transferred to the Australian Wildlife Hospital for a full check-up from a specialized wildlife vet.
Blood tests  at AWH showed that Evie was anaemic. Blood parasites were also found which may have been the cause of the anaemia. This particular type of parasite was first found in koalas in the Northern Rivers in areas to the north of Lismore and has since been found in koalas in SE Queensland. Until Evie, few koalas diagnosed with blood parasites had been successfully treated because their body condition was very poor and they were suffering from other complications by the time they had come into care. Evie had been lucky that someone had noticed she was not behaving normally and she was treated prior to deteriorating to that state.
To the joy of everyone concerned, Evie’s examination under anaesthetic showed she was carrying a small pouch young. After several weeks of care and treatment at the AWH, Evie’s blood tests showed she no longer had the parasite and she was ready return to the wild. On her return to the Care Centre in Lismore she was not the quiet little girl when rescued and the little bundle in her pouch had more than doubled in size. It is still some time before the little joey will start venturing out into the world.
When Evie was ready for release, Peter was phoned and he and the original rescuer took her up to the back of his property to an area he is regenerating. By the time they got to the row of Tallowwoods, Evie was getting agitated and wanting to get out of the cage. She leapt out of the cage and scampered up the tree and waited for them to depart before heading further up the tree.  (Pic left)
We wish her well and hope she and her joey continue to thrive. Our thanks to Peter for recognising that Evie needed assistance, without his keen eye Evie and her joey would not have survived.  As always, I remind you to call FOK on the 24hr hotline 02 6622 1233 and check our website www.friendsofthekoala.org to review koala illnesses and the details of our group of volunteers that endeavour to save many more Evies.  Hopefully next issue I can report on our conference on koala conservation.
Karen Jennings