Near blind, stressed, surrounded by foreign people in an unfamiliar place, the koala dubbed 'Nullamanna Hercules' has pulled through treatment and has been successfully released back into the wild.
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He was surrendered to the vets in April, the "strongest koala" WIRES' Elizabeth Kakoschke has ever seen.
"He was a particularly great save," Ms Kakoschke said.
"He was one of the strongest koalas I've ever had to wrestle out of the cage!"
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The large, well-muscled koala was pretty much completely blind from an eye infection, yet he was rescued before his health had seriously deteriorated to the point of emaciation.
"He was a very, very stressy koala, I was very concerned when we sent him down - you can imagine being dumped somewhere blind, he didn't know anyone, with strange noises and sounds - preparing to battle for his life."
Elizabeth usually refers Inverell koalas over to Port Macquarie for treatment, however the landslide cut them off at the ranges, so it was organised to get Hercules to Dubbo.
"Kudos to them, they've done an amazing job with his antibiotic treatment," she enthused.
Successfully restored to full health, he was released at Five Corners, a nature reserve near Nullamanna, at the end of July.
Hercules is one of 34 koalas Elizabeth has recused in the last 12 months from the Inverell area alone.
I see Inverell and Gwydir Shire as some future hope for Western koalas survival, but we need to engage with landholders and the public in general.
- Elizabeth Kakoschke
"Inverell probably makes up around three quarters of koala rescues I see, and I cover the region including Bingara, and the Gwydir areas," she explained.
While no research has been done to identify how many of the iconic Australia mammal the Inverell Shire has, Elizabeth said in her experience, there is enough to perhaps make Inverell something of a koala hub.
"Inverell has got one of the best stands of koalas that I've seen," she said.
She said koalas in the west have not landed on the scientists' maps, and sees potential for more koala corridors to connect the koalas together to prevent inbreeding.
"The future hope is that maybe people will look at those stands of old growth trees, and preserve what's left," she said.
"Landholders should start thinking about linking corridors. Cattle breeders don't want to inbreed cattle - but that's what will happen if we don't have those stands."
Something of a "political football", she said landholders shouldn't be afraid of having koala rescuers come onto their land - a mindset which needed to change for the sake of the species' long term survival.
She said many landholders have been reluctant to acknowledge they have koala on their property, even hearing stories about researchers coming across an unwell koala, but the landholder refusing to allow anyone on their land to rescue it for treatment.
"Disease is sadly creeping into the Inverell area. Farmers wouldn't leave a contagious animal in their herd of pure bred cattle for fear that the rest of the herd would die," she said.
"If koala disease is not identified, contained and hopefully treated, wild koalas in the future are in jeopardy.
"This has happened already at Gunnedah."
She was at the presentation of findings from the Parliamentary Enquiry into NSW Koala decline, which outlined that 75 per cent of Gunnedah's koala population have disappeared.
"I see Inverell and Gwydir Shire as some future hope for Western koalas survival, but we need to engage with landholders and the public in general," she said.
"Please report it, and don't fear. Just let the rescuers know - the rescuers in the area are local landholders themselves so they understand."
And with mating season just around the corner, she reminded drivers to keep their eyes out on roads for roaming koalas looking for a companion.
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