A rogue koala has been caught red-handed after raiding a tree nursery in Australia, nibbling on thousands of pounds’ worth of seedlings that were destined for the creation of new koala habitats.
The koala, dubbed Claude for his impressive claws and described by the Australia media as a “leaf thief” par excellence, is estimated to have munched his way through around A$6,000 (£3,000) of seedlings during repeated night-time raids.
Claude was unknowingly scoring an own goal – the young trees were being grown for organisations that plant them in the wild in an effort to establish koala-friendly woodland.
The larceny began a few months ago at Eastern Forest Nursery in South Gundurimba near Lismore in New South Wales.
“I noticed some of my seedlings were being chewed off and I thought it was probably a possum,” the owner, Humphrey Herington, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“Every night, there’d be a few more and a few more [missing].”
Eventually, the culprit was caught in the act.
“One morning we came out to work and Claude was sitting on a bench next to all these plants, just wrapped around a pole,” Mr Herington said.
“It seems like he’d had a really big feed that night, so I think he was too full to go and climb up his tree.”
Eager to get rid of the marsupial but anxious not to harm it, Mr Herington wrapped the koala in a towel and took him to a field a few hundred yards away, placing him in a tree.
Undeterred, Claude was back to his leaf-nibbling ways within two days.
Mr Herington is now constructing a koala-proof fence to keep Claude, and any other marauding koalas in the area, away from his precious seedlings.
“It’s basically just a netting fence with star pickets and it’s got a wobbly top on it, so if he tries to climb up the fence he’s going to swing back out and hopefully that will keep him out,” Mr Herington said.
The young trees were destined for conservation groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and a local organisation called Bangalow Koalas, which aims to plant 90,000 trees a year.
“The seedlings that Claude’s eaten, we sell them to farmers and Landcare groups. These ones particularly are for koala habitat, so they were just coming along for a spring planting.”
He said it was the first time he had ever had a problem with a koala.
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September 05, 2023 at 09:00PM
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Koala eats thousands of pounds' worth of seedlings destined for creation of new wildlife habitats - The Telegraph
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