Orphaned five-month-old baby koala gets an adorable arm cast after falling from a tree and breaking its arm
- A tiny koala joey is recovering after a fall from a tree at a logging plantation
- Staff at Werribee Open Range Zoo provided round the clock care for the joey
- The joey was fitted with a tiny cast and given a stuffed toy as a surrogate mother
An Australian zoo has shared a photo of a brave baby koala being treated for a fractured arm after being rescued when her mother fell from a tree in a eucalyptus plantation.
The tiny joey, just five-months-old and weighing 500grams, was rushed to Werribee Zoo in Victoria where she was treated by veterinarians.
‘She was just at the stage where she would have been starting to poke her head out of mum’s pouch. Joeys that size don’t have a good survival rate in care,’ vet nurse Jess Rice said.
A tiny koala joey has been fitted with a mini-cast to repair a broken arm it suffered after falling from a tree on a logging plantation
But expert staff at the zoo refused to give up – providing round the clock care and fitting the marsupial with an adorable arm cast after x-rays revealed she had fractured her limb in the fall.
Soon the koala began to gain weight and recovered enough strength to explore her surroundings and climb on the back of a koala stuffed toy as she would naturally do with her mother.
Unfortunately, the difficult decision was made by an external veterinarian to euthanise the adult koala as she suffered severe injuries in the fall from the tree.
Staff at the zoo, however, were ecstatic they were able to save the baby who has now recovered enough to live with a wildlife carer before being returned to the wild later this year.
Last week the joey was released to an animal carer for the final months of its recovery
‘It was really touch and go when she was brought to us,’ Ms Rice said.
Commenters on a video uploaded to the Zoos Victoria YouTube page were also quite enamored with the joey.
‘Awwww, bless her,’ one person said.
‘Poor baby she is so cute, give her a kiss from me,’ another person said.
‘How adorable, thank you for saving her and other animals,’ added a third.
Koala’s are listed as a vulnerable species by the IUCN – with bushfires, deforestation, and disease having affected their numbers.