Tillie's Trees

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Tillie, I heard a report today on the news about the fires around Sydney but also Northern Queensland. My prayers for you and so many others. Be safe.🐨
 
Ye, I saw an article on CNN website.... over 350 Koalas died and hundreds have been injured.
So far...

I know you're heart broken for them and I pray your land will be saved.

Tillie, we're all thinking about you.
 
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Thank you all, it's so horrible I can't describe.
Al, that loss was about 4 hours south. For some reason it got a lot of news coverage. Here only 70 km from my property we had a much larger fire (that is still partly burning weeks later) and the estimate on that one is around 700 koalas lost.
This is a story of hope thread so I won't go on, we are reeling and today is catastrophic weather predicted - 6.30 am here I'm about to go out koala spotting and see what the day brings.
Koalas have been very hard to find for a few weeks, the conditions have them hiding deep in thick brush they don't normally use.
 
This is a story of hope thread so I won't go on,
Tillie, I totally understand your thoughts about keeping your posts here hopeful. However, may I say that even though news of draught, fires, and injuries to these beloved creatures are not uplifting, I need these posts!

I need to have something bigger than my disease to broaden my daily focus.
I need to have a larger sphere of influence for daily prayer other than the circumstances surrounding me today.
Hope to me is learning more about the world we all share and live in each and every day of my life.

You are a difference maker, a hero, and you bring hope to these creatures! 🐨 And this brings joy me (to all of us). ❤
 
Thank you Cathy, I have to say that I couldn't reply with the forum playing up, but your message really touched me deeply. This week has been just horrible and the closest to feeling overwhelmed with despair that I have felt in a long time.
Your tree is one of 30 on the property that has a bowl of water at the base. I replenish the bowls twice a day as they need and even though I only have 1 wildlife camera to monitor with, I have seen a range of wildlife using them. Haven't seen a koala drink yet, but with only 1 camera ...

Stevie and Nick were in your tree blitzc during the week (and that is when I moved a bowl to the base). You can always tell your tree with the different way the bark peels leaving a very smooth trunk underneath.

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Racee and Smokey were also in KarenNWendyn's tree during the week.
I've not see much of the koalas during this awful week, and mostly they have been in rubbish shrubs down in gully's and such. I suspect they are coming out at night and feeding, then hiding during the day.

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Your tree is one of 30 on the property that has a bowl of water at the base. I replenish the bowls twice a day as they need and even though I only have 1 wildlife camera to monitor with, I have seen a range of wildlife using them.
I love that! Such an act of loving kindness. Made my day to hear that you (and I’m sure others) are doing that for the critters. 💕
 
Life saving water bowls for all creatures to come and drink. How kind, thoughtful, and loving. They are so lucky to have you ♥ . Thoughts for protection and healing go out to you all🤗.

Positive thoughts: Imagine a gathering of dark clouds containing rain, forming over all areas needing it most. See them releasing a multitude of drops, heavy enough and lasting long enough until all danger has passed. Visualize them continuing, replenishing the earth, filling lakes, streams and brooks. Soaking deep into the earth raising the water table for pumps to bring it up for all to drink. Rain that is enough but not too much. When all is safe again, think of it falling in due season, that all may benefit according to their needs. Let it begin today.
May it be so. B.
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Early in September, I didn't know this was going to happen, and it did just kind of evolve itself to be honest. This amazing professional photographer was hired to do a short video release on my work here for the government department called Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT). He decided they don't do their media well and he wanted to show them something better.
So he ended up tailing me for a whole weekend, and lots of unexpected things happened.
Then he spent 2 months editing and the BCT loved it and bought the film from him!

Here is my story of hope - CALS can find beauty and meaning in life out of the ashes of their horrific loss.


At the end that is Luca being released into NikkiJ's tree :)
 
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Wonderful and amazing story, and definitely a story of hope. You’ve discussed how your colony has expanded and can serve as a model for other small properties to also develop and expand their habitat. Can your Koala Gardens trade some koalas with other similar small properties to increase biodiversity?
 
Can your Koala Gardens trade some koalas with other similar small properties to increase biodiversity?
Definitely not - these are wild animals and extremely territorial. The only problem koalas face is pure loss of habitat, on a massive scale (well after the near killing of them to extinction up until 1930, for their superior pelts).
You simply cannot move koalas about, they just sit and starve to death morbid, or they try to get back home and usually die along the way.
They are very complex the moment you start interfering with them.

As a doctor you might be interested to know that treating them in a hospital setting is fraught with complexity because as a wild animal that lives alone and does not socialise, when they are captured to treat, they stress. Their cortisol levels rise very high, and we end up dealing with all kinds of extra health conditions that do not happen to them in the wild. So rehabilitating wild koalas is a very difficult endeavour and partly due to this our success rates are very low, around 20%.

That one released in the video was reported walking up the middle of the road, in a 100 kph zone, about 500 m down the hill from my lowest boundary. The fella who released her there with me, helped me rescue her out of some dense shrubs she climbed into when some kind people stopped and shooed her off the road. So it was nice to get him to come release her. From her spot there in Nikki's tree she could actually see clear down to the shrubs we rescued her from. She stayed around on and off for a week, then she left, presumably back down to her original home range.

Another lovely girl that I helped rescue 500 m the other direction, after being hit by a car, was released into Neil's tree, and she had a joey in pouch that got named Neil. (Neil started the whole Tillie's tree idea). Her name is Glory. She stayed around for 2 days and then I never saw her again, until just last week! Suddenly after more than 3 years, just across the road, 15 m from where we rescued her, there she was. So she got her bearings and left here back, to her home range where she has been all this time.

This property sits in what has been a koala corridor, to disperse and ensure genetic diversity (which I think is what you mean). Koalas know how to do this best - I would be totally against humans interfering in koala breeding by attempting to manipulate this. Breeding choice is a really complex process between koalas in a colony and best left to the experts - the koalas.

The biodiversity aspect is about encouraging a rich diversity of flora and fauna to create stable ecosystems that can hopefully cope at least a little better with climate change. I will say however, that the shocking impact of the fires these past weeks, that are still continuing, makes me wonder if this is a pipe dream. Nothing stands after these huge fires that is for sure.

I have the habitat for 14 known vulnerable species found in a 10km radius of the property. So far we have verified 6 of those species on the property. So part of the work is to take all these things into account when do regenerative work.

Thanks so much for trying to think outside the box with that idea!
 
Definitely not - these are wild animals and extremely territorial. The only problem koalas face is pure loss of habitat, on a massive scale (well after the near killing of them to extinction up until 1930, for their superior pelts).
You simply cannot move koalas about, they just sit and starve to death morbid, or they try to get back home and usually die along the way.
They are very complex the moment you start interfering with them.
Wow. I obviously had no idea. Thanks for educating me.
 
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