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Meet the three adorable koalas at Edinburgh Zoo
Edinburgh Evening News
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09/06/2024
As part of an ongoing video series with Edinburgh Zoo - we spent a morning in the koala enclosure
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Transcript
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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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