On Saturday I visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and got to interact with koalas, kangaroos, emus, dingoes, crocodiles, and a some other very interesting animals. Lone Pine is the world's largest koala sanctuary with about 150 koalas. All the koalas are named too! When I saw my first koala I seriously thought it looked fake! When I first felt a koala it felt fake too! They are so cute though!
Anyway, it was pretty interesting learning about koalas. Baby koalas are called joeys just like baby kangaroos are. There is a 34 day gestation period and then the baby koala is pretty much born underdeveloped and is about the size of a quarter. It then crawls up to this little pouch in the mother koala and spends the next 6 months fully developing. Pretty crazy! Koalas eat eucalyptus leaves all day long and then sleep when they aren't eating. Sweet life! The reason koalas are so sleepy is that eucalyptus leaves are really hard to digest and they don't provide much energy.
Besides the koalas, I got to feed and pet kangaroos that were just chilling out and jumping around in this huge open field. They eat right out of your hand! Pretty cool as well! Did you know that kangaroos can't jump backwards?
2 comments:
so jealous! koala's are adorable! how illegal is it to have one as a pet?
I've been fortunate enough to have the same experience you have. When I was younger my family and I were in Australia several months, and we visited a sanctuary-- koalas are sooo soft!! I love your blog, btw-- it captures Australia so well, especially when you add in your fantastic photographs (I'm a photographer as well).
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