Cuddling with a koala - a visit to the Lone Pine animal sanctuary

By Christian Roewekamp Jan 10, 2012, 3:06 GMT

Brisbane, Australia - Rodney feels so soft to the touch. With its two paws it is firmly holding onto the sleeves of the tourist's shirt.

'Stay calm. Don't move around,' advises a ranger of the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, a zoo on the outskirts of the city of Brisbane in Australia's province of Queensland. 'Then both of you will enjoy it.'

The human and the marsupial briefly look into each other's eyes and then the koala turns its face aside. What is a thrill to the vacationer is a routine matter for Rodney - that is his job, more or less.

Rodney is one of 14 koalas with which visitors to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary may be photographed. Each animal has a maximum of 30 minutes of cuddling duty per day, because otherwise it would be too stressful. In the high season of December and January, when 2,000 visitors arrive each day, there are long waiting lines.

Altogether, around 130 koalas live in the sanctuary, along with a similar number of kangaroos and their smaller kin, the wallaby. There are also wombats, duck-bill platypuses, snakes, dingos, Tasmanian devils and emus, as well as a Southern Cassowary from North Queensland to be marvelled at.

In other words - virtually everything that Australia's animal world has to offer. For visitors, the best times are early morning or late in the afternoon, because the animals are particularly active then.

One can search in vain for evidence of the devastating flood that struck huge areas of Queensland province in late 2010 and which also did not spare Lone Pine. Because of the many donations from around the world, the grounds could quickly be cleared and restored, Tourism Queensland officials say. The animals in the sanctuary had all been evacuated to safety before the floods.

The sanctuary started up in 1927 with two koalas. 'Up until about 20 years ago the main aim was to establish a kind of genetic pool reserve so as to assure that the species would not die out,' zoo ranger Kelly Lindsay noted.

In April 1998 the first artificial insemination of a female koala took place in Lone Pine. After 34 days, the mother Robyn gave birth to Lica.

'Actually it was all about demonstrating that something like that works. Normally koalas are so fertile that there is absolutely no need for artificial insemination,' Lindsay said.

During tours of the park the rangers point out the different kangaroo species - for example, the difference between an Eastern Grey and a Red Kangaroo - and what colour of fur the wallabies have. Children and adults are allowed to feed the animals, or even on occasion pet an emu.

The stars at Lone Pine, however, remain the koalas living in their various enclosures. There is a 'kindergarten' for the very small ones, and an 'old-age home' for those animals which are older than 12 years and therefore have exceeded the usual life expectancy.

'Here, they get the best leaves which are easy to chew,' Kelly Lindsay says. 'In the wilderness, many koalas die because they no longer have any teeth.'

And, the 'oldies' are no longer called for cuddling duty - so Rodney has no competition to fear.