Koala drinks from a cyclist's water bottle

[fiamme red]

It must have been a very thirsty koala to approach the cyclist and crawl up the wheel to get a drink. :)

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2016/03/02/Cyclist-shares-his-water-bottle-with-a-thirsty-koala/6101456934578/

[echappist]

very nice, i remember a similar picture from a few years ago when there was a drought (or was it a forest fire)

[d_douglas]

That makes me happy !

[CunegoFan]

very nice, i remember a similar picture from a few years ago when there was a drought (or was it a forest fire)

http://i.imgur.com/yYP6V.jpg

[AngryScientist]

that is hillarious.

wait until the bears find the local aussie pubs!

[soulspinner]

that is hillarious.

Wait until the bears find the local aussie pubs!

:d

[OtayBW]

Have you heard the one about the koala bear who walks into a brothel?.....
Well......maybe that story is for another time.........:beer:

[Fiertetimestwo]

Those pictures (both sets) are just a few minutes up the road from my house- Rustychisel and I ride those roads all the time. We have seen plenty of koalas but they have never demanded a drink from us!

[fiamme red]

Déjà vu. ;)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/30/australia/cyclist-koala-australia-water-intl-scli/index.html

[redir]

The poor little things. The fires down there are devastating.

[RFC]

The poor little things. The fires down there are devastating.

That's right. A good photo, but a sad situation. There are estimates that the fires have killed a third of the Koala population.

[tuscanyswe]

Yeah i heard 8000 koalas have perished in the fires :/
Thats v sad

[William]

Nice to see people helping out animals in distress. Clicking on the thread and seeing this is a nice contrast to an article I read this morning in the newspaper about a town in the foothills of the Cascades that has a herd/s of Elk that hang around the town. Some a-hole has been shooting arrows at them apparently just for the "fun" of it.:butt:

People can be wonderful, but some can be complete azz-hats.








W.

[echappist]

Yeah i heard 8000 koalas have perished in the fires :/
Thats v sad

not only sad, the fires are downright scary

apparently when one gets sufficiently large, it generates weather storm of its own, which could spark (literally) fires ~20 miles away by spewing out embers that could start new fires

one would like to believe that the term pyrocumulonimbus were from science fiction; instead, it's reality


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/20/scientists-fear-surge-in-supersized-bushfires-that-create-their-own-violent-thunderstorms

[robertbb]

These fires are being described as "armageddon" by the people caught out near them.

There's new, massive outbreaks further south into Victoria now. The Australian Defence Force is being called in by sea and air to rescue people off the beach in East Gippsland.

Bare in mind.. it's January 1. Our hottest month is typically February.

Side story: one of my best mates through high school here in Melbourne (circa '98) is American, from NM. I went Stateside to catch up with him a few years back and we road tripped and tramped around for a while. We drove through Death Valley CA in the heat of summer, and at 100km an hour I was dumb enough to roll down the car window... imagine an invisible blowtorch.

That's how fast and how hot the wind gusts down here can be like. Now picture a forest 4 storeys high, on fire and that kind of wind changing directions randomly...

Yesterday the wind literally picked up and overturned a 17 ton fire truck and killed a firefighter. The truck was on stable ground, parked according to protocol by a driver with 17 years experience. There are veteran firefighters who witnessed it who still can't believe what they saw with their own eyes.

Read this: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-sky-turned-black-the-beast-had-arrived-in-mallacoota-20191231-p53nyq.html

:-(

[Llewellyn]

This bushfire season (that started back in Spring) is about as catastrophic as it gets. And the predictions are that it will continue for months until / unless we get significant rain.

The place is on fire and, despite the heroic efforts of the firies (most of them volunteers) we can't stop it. We are so far up S**t Creek without a paddle.

[vqdriver]

in regards to koalas, are they just naturally ok with humans? this isn't the first pic i've seen where they seem perfectly comfortable interacting with/sitting on/being held by people.

[Llewellyn]

in regards to koalas, are they just naturally ok with humans? this isn't the first pic i've seen where they seem perfectly comfortable interacting with/sitting on/being held by people.

No, normally they will stay away but they are so hungry/thirsty/desperate that they are putting aside their natural cautiousness and interacting. It really is a dire situation - we have lost so many of them in these fires that they will be wiped out of some areas. Predictions are that they will be extinct in the wild by 2050.

[vqdriver]

That makes it curiouser. How do they associate humans as a source of help or water?

2050 seems really soon btw. What cause, shrinking habitat? I cant imagine they're hunted.

[Llewellyn]

That makes it curiouser. How do they associate humans as a source of help or water?

2050 seems really soon btw. What cause, shrinking habitat? I cant imagine they're hunted.

Their habitat is being cleared for McMansions and other development at a terrifyingly fast rate. AFAIK they also only eat a particular species of Eucalypt so that obviously limits their range and the areas they can go to. IMO I think 2050 is an optimistic assessment.

I think they are turning to humans because they are so desperate that they will seek any sort of help. And humans are often the only living thing around after a bushfire has gone through so there's not a lot of choice for them. It breaks my heart to think about it.

[gasman]

Man that it so sad to see the plight of the Koalas. Well and all of southern Australia .

[Llewellyn]

On a slightly different note, koala's sound an awful lot like feral pigs when they howl. Some years ago my wife and I were at a lookout near Lorne on the Great Ocean Road and we heard this incredibly loud snorting sound coming from the bush behind us. We looked around nervously and were convinced that a very grumpy 100kg razorback was about to come storming out of the bush and tear us to pieces. But it didn't, and it took quite a few minutes of careful scanning of the bush before we saw a koala resting in the fork of a tree about 20 metres above the ground and howling away. He was a good 40 or more metres away but it sounded like he was almost next to us :eek:

[gasman]

Wow ! I didn’t know they could be so vocal .

[happycampyer]

This was posted on Instagram—heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6vtpmehI7U/?igshid=1exitgysbacw9

[Seamus]

This seems relevant:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/new-south-wales-fires-in-australia-the-worlds-response.html