Meet the three adorable koalas at Edinburgh Zoo

Edinburgh Evening News

As part of an ongoing video series with Edinburgh Zoo - we spent a morning in the koala enclosure

Transcript

00:00 I'm not going to do it.

00:02 I'm not going to do it.

00:04 Hello and welcome to our mini-series about Edinburgh Zoo.

00:09 In each episode, we'll meet a different species and speak to their keepers about what a typical working day is like for them.

00:16 Today, we'll be heading to the Koala Territory, where the UK's only Queensland Koalas are housed.

00:23 Including two female joeys, Talara and Mayuri, who were both born at Edinburgh Zoo in the summer of 2022.

00:30 With the two joeys, even though they're similar ages, completely different personalities,

00:38 so Talara, I like to say she knows what she wants.

00:43 She's a big foodie, she'll usually be out eating quite a lot of the day.

00:47 She's also a lot more active and I feel like a bit more confident compared to the other two.

00:53 So you'll usually see her out in the public view a lot more.

00:57 Mayuri, our other joey, is kind of the polar opposite.

01:01 She's a lot more quiet, spends a lot more time to herself, likes to sit up really high in the trees.

01:06 So if you see one right at the top of a very high tree, that's going to be Mayuri.

01:10 And then you've got Clary, who's kind of a mix of the both.

01:13 So sometimes she's down a bit more in view, but also likes to spend time up in the trees as well.

01:20 Each day begins by preparing the koalas' favourite snack, eucalyptus.

01:25 With the zoo receiving between 7 to 15 different species of the plant each week.

01:30 The very first thing we do before we even head to the koalas, anything like that,

01:35 is we will go to our eucalyptus store and we'll pick our species for the day.

01:40 So we like to give them a mixture of different types of eucalyptus to eat, just so they're getting a variety.

01:47 In the morning, staff renew the eucalyptus, assessing which species of the plant have been popular with the koalas,

01:55 and logging the data on a spreadsheet to monitor what the marsupials are eating.

01:59 With excess eucalyptus going to chimpanzees for bedding, and also as food for other animals,

02:05 with wallabies and galahs known to be partial to the pungent snack.

02:09 With the eucalyptus, you'll notice that they like to eat the little buds at the top.

02:15 The fresher the leaf, the nicer it's going to taste and the less toxic the eucalyptus leaves are going to be for them.

02:22 So you'll notice on this piece here, they have stripped the top and they've ate quite far down,

02:27 but you'll notice the further down the stems you go, there's still some leaves there.

02:32 And basically the older the leaf and the further down on the eucalyptus, the more toxic it's going to be for them.

02:38 So they try to only eat the newer and budding leaves, just because the toxicity is less potent there,

02:45 and it's easier for them to digest, and I think it also has a better taste for them as well,

02:49 because again, the stronger the eucalyptus, the harder the taste is for them.

02:55 After the eucalyptus has been replenished, the heating checked and the UV light turned on,

03:00 it's time for the dirty work to begin.

03:03 It's then the fun job of cleaning the enclosure.

03:07 So we'll start cleaning up on the floor, we'll start picking up all the old leaves that have fallen from us changing eucalyptus over.

03:15 We'll also pick up all the little poops that the koalas have created over the previous day.

03:21 And then we finish off by giving the enclosure a good dig over, as they've got bark on the floor,

03:28 just to make sure that we're giving that a good movement, and then we also hose and mist the enclosure down,

03:34 as they have a lot of live plants in there.

03:37 Also, the humidity helps keep the eucalyptus fresher for longer as well, to stop it drying out for the koalas.

03:44 Eleanor has been working with the koalas for the last six months,

03:48 and in that time has noticed the different characters of each of the koalas,

03:52 with some being more thrill-seeking than others.

03:55 The lad is a bit more adventurous, and I think sometimes she forgets that she's a koala,

04:00 and you'll sometimes see her, she'll try and climb the fig tree.

04:05 So you'll be doing your cleaning, doing your pick up, and you just hear all this rustling going on.

04:10 You look up and you see, instead of her trying to use the branching we've created for her, to get from A to B,

04:16 she'll instead launch herself, land on the fig tree, which is a much thinner branch,

04:21 and due to the weight of her, it'll bend and move for her.

04:26 So she gets to her branch by basically holding on to this tiny little fig branch.

04:30 It's almost like a cartoon, you just see her moving and then getting across,

04:34 and she just looks ridiculous every time we do it.

04:37 Like, she's got all these branches to choose, but instead, no, she'd rather pick the fig tree,

04:42 and just allow that to do the movement for her.

04:46 So yeah, she's definitely a bit more of a character when it comes to the koala team compared to the other two.

04:52 Talara's adventurous streak may have come from her jet-setty mum, Inala,

04:56 who last year boarded a Ryanair flight to Belgium to join another zoo,

05:00 and despite having an economy seat, had first class service.

05:04 She had her own ticket, she had her own seat in the plane.

05:08 There's a photo on our social media pages of one of our koala keepers with her,

05:12 holding her in place on this flight.

05:16 She got through her own security, she got to go through customs,

05:19 she had her own little crate for her built with a special branch,

05:22 so she was able to hold on to that during transport.

05:25 We picked out some of her favourites that we knew she was fond of,

05:29 so it would encourage her to eat.

05:31 So yeah, we had six species of eucalyptus for her to go with her,

05:34 so then if she got peckish on the way, or if she wanted something to eat,

05:37 our koala team was able to feed her during her transit.

05:41 Inalna said working inside the koala enclosure,

05:44 and being surrounded by eucalyptus,

05:46 brings a unique experience not found anywhere else in the zoo.

05:50 It does have a nice fragrance that comes with it,

05:54 compared to working with some of the other animals,

05:56 especially because I work with birds and primates as well, as part of the section.

06:01 So it's quite refreshing when you're on the koala side,

06:04 because it's one of those sections you probably go in and you smell nicer coming out of it,

06:07 than when you went into it,

06:09 just because the fragrance of the eucalyptus is very strong.

06:12 So it's kind of nice for a change,

06:14 working with something that you know isn't going to make you come out smelling of God knows what.

06:19 So yeah, it's sometimes a refreshing change when you see you're on the koala section,

06:22 and you're like, "Oh, I'll smell of eucalyptus for the week."

06:25 So it is one of those ones that, yeah,

06:27 it's a kind of little added bonus to working with koalas,

06:30 but also you'll smell nice when you're working with the koalas as well.

06:33 Join us next time, when we return to the zoo,

06:36 to meet tiger Luku and his keeper Helen.

06:39 one.

06:41 Hey, man.

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