Australia zoo introduces its first baby koala for the season
EACH YEAR WE LOOK forward to the arrival of Australia Zoo’s newest additions to its koala family. This year, the zoo welcomes ‘Macadamia’, an infant male koala.
Macadamia is the first of 12 koala joeys to be born this season, making his very first public appearance today, after two months in his mother’s pouch.
It’ll take some time before the this new baby koala becomes fully independent as he will be relying on his mother, Willow to learn all the basics, like climbing and grooming.
“Willow is definitely one of our sweetest koala girls,” says Australia Zoo.
“She loves her cuddles. In fact, she love cuddles so much that she sometimes annoys the other koalas where she lives by sitting ever so close to them.”
This mother Koala will surely be enjoying the company of her new koala joey.
Last year, Kirsten Latham from Australia Zoo told Australian Geographic about some of the threats to the Koala population in Queensland.
“The population of koalas in Queensland are being radically affected by disease, habitat loss and the increasing human footprint.”
The situation in Queensland hasn’t gotten much better since then, with the World Wildlife Fund reporting in early March that koalas could be completely wiped out in certain parts of Queensland due to land clearing.
Mandalay Stuart from Australia Zoo says that sponsorship of Macadamia’s name will go towards helping koalas admitted to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital.
“In the wild koalas are classed as vulnerable, which means educating guests on how they can help this iconic Australian animal is essential to conserving their population. By encouraging our guests to be aware of the factors that contribute to threats against koalas such as habitat destruction, car strikes and domestic pet attacks, we hope to minimise the number of patients that come through the doors of the Wildlife Hospital and continue to give the best care to the ones that do,” she said.
Willow and her new joey koala, Macadamia. (Image Credit: Australia Zoo)
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