Most visitors to Australia want to tick a few things off their list when here: Sydney, Great Barrier Reef, Ayres Rock, dive with sharks, surf, pet a kangaroo and many other things including...Cuddle a koala! 🐨
For those who don't know, koala's are a pretty cute looking thing and good to cuddle, unless they get their claws into you and then it's just painful. They have some serious claws as they are expert tree-climbers but are generally placid and easy going unless picked on and then they can be quite aggressive.
Some of you may have heard of drop bears, feral koala's that wait high in the treetops for their prey, tourists, to walk by underneath only to drop unsuspectedly upon said tourist to tear into their flesh. Well...Don't tell anyone...But, they don't really exist...Koala's do, not drop bears. We just like to mess with tourists and make up stories about all the things that can kill them here...It's odd really considering that the list of those bitey/stingy things is long enough so adding one more is probably not necessary. But we do it and enjoy the looks of horror!
Anyway, I like koala's. They are cute and as Aussie as kangaroo's and well...Me I guess.
I took the image below of a drop bear koala sitting curled up on a tree branch at my gun range last weekend. The arrow points the little bugger out. That little blob on the branch. Sorry it's not a good picture but I only had my phone with me so couldn't zoom much. It was funny because we were shooting the stage you see set up in the image below which was 36 rounds, so a lot of shooting considering the 70 or so shooters that competed on the weekend...And what did old mate up in the tree do the whole time? Yep, sleep. The shooting didn't bother it at all.
This image below is a zoom in on my phone camera so not a good quality image. You might be able to make out that the koala is sitting on its haunches leaning up against a conveniently placed branch. It's hugging its legs which are drawn up to its chest. You can see how thin the branch is and when you consider that this koala is about the size of a decent-sized 2 year old it gives an idea of how good these things can climb. They are good sleepers too, obviously.
This little Aussie was content to sit around and all the gunfire didn't bother it at all seemingly. I got to the range at 1000 and left at 1530 and it hadn't moved. It didn't even drop on someone's head and tear their throat out drop bear style. I wish I had my camera on the day as it's actually quite rare to see koala's hanging out like this mostly. They are always there, but not always in sight. I guess many don't look up either so wouldn't see them anyway.
Koala's are great to hug...They love hugging with a passion and mostly are docile and friendly. If you come across one in the wild leave it alone however if you get the chance to cuddle one at a wildlife zoo do it! You won't regret taking the time to do so.
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