IT WAS triumphal moment when big hefty koala Zeus scampered up a tree in Wollemi National Park earlier this month, healthy and happy.
He’d been named after a Greek god because of his impressive physical stature, and with expert medical care, went from miserably almost blind to complete health.
He was being monitored as part of the Blue Mountains Koala Project, run by Science for Wildlife, a local not-for- profit organisation.
Researcher Dr Kellie Leigh noticed an eye infection when Zeus was first found, which gradually got worse over several months.
“At one stage his eye looked to have closed up completely, and we thought he probably had chlamydia,” she said. “It’s a common disease that occurs in two different strains in koalas in this area and can result in nasty symptoms including blindness, urinary incontinence and infertility. It can eventually be fatal.”
Dr Leigh said there was a mixed record of success in the treatment of chlamydia in koalas. Often the stress of being held in care combined with the disease symptoms meant they didn’t survive treatment.
“I was pretty nervous about re-catching Zeus and taking him into care for treatment, but we had to try,” she said. “If the koalas are given antibiotic injections, the standard treatment, it can mess with their gut flora and those bacteria are essential for them to be able to detoxify and digest eucalypt leaves, so they can deteriorate further.”
Zeus was taken to Vickii Lett, a local WIRES carer, who started him on an eye ointment straight away. “Zeus quite liked the soothing eye-wash but then rubbed most of the ointment out later,” she said. “He grunted at me whenever he’d had enough of being interfered with.”
Zeus’s enclosure was a large aviary about 8m long and 4m high was located on a rock shelf above a small cliff in the bush on the Lett property away from the house
“I think that made him feel more secure. He had the feeling of being up high and above potential threat. We had to remove some of the higher perches as he would climb well out of reach for most of the day.”
She said trying to find good quality local leaves was difficult.
“We got permission from McMahons Powerlines to cut regrowth Forest Redgum. His all-time favourite was broad-leafed ironbark. It is challenging collecting the correct leaves as koalas can quite often just decide they don’t want to eat a particular leaf variety so we are always searching for sites for leaf collection.”
Expert David Phalen was consulted and organised testing by the University of Sydney’s Koala Health Hub. It turned out Zeus had chlamydia and was at risk of a serious urogenital infection. So he had to have the injections. He was still physically fit when he came into care so everyone thought he had a good chance of successful treatment.
Ms Lett said both she and Zeus suffered 28 days of injections. “Zeus suffered the needles, given into a pinch of skin on the back of his neck, and I suffered from his attitude; he did not behave like a sedate and sickly koala.
Ms Lett ended up using her husband as a decoy, who would distract Zeus while Vickii approached in stealth-mode from behind, with Zeus grunting and occasionally swiping at her hubby. “But we all got through it, alive and unharmed,” she said.
As Zeus recovered and his eyesight cleared he would patrol the aviary looking for potential escape routes. It was not unusual to find him parked at the door which made it very difficult to get in.
“He was a master of intimidation and was well named,” Ms Lett said.
The group wants hear of any Hawkesbury koala sightings. Just go to www.scienceforwildlife.org/iconic-koalas/ and fill in the details. Their Facebook page is www.facebook.com/ScienceForWildlife.
