Claude the koala goes on rampage and eats six thousand dollars’ worth of seedlings on NSW’s North Coast
Claude the koala goes on rampage and eats six thousand dollars’ worth of seedlings on NSW’s North Coast
<!–
<!–
<!–<!–
<!–
<!–
<!–
A hungry koala has been been caught ‘green-handed’ after eating thousands of seedlings that were intended to be used to create a new koala habitat.
The marsupial wrecked havoc on about $60,00 worth of tree seedlings at the Eastern Forest Nursery, on NSW’s far North Coast, during a two-month rampage.
The nursery’s owner, Humphrey Herington, initially believed the damage was being done by possums until one morning when he came across the greedy koala.
Mr Herrington found Claude after a particularly large night of indulging on the seedlings and he had become too large to climb his tree.
He said that Claude had ‘eaten thousands of seedlings’ from ‘every type of koala food tree we grow here’.
A hungry koala named Claude (pictured) for his long claws, has been found to have engorged himself on about $6000 worth of seedlings at the Eastern Forest Nursery, NSW’s North Coast
Mr Herrington initially tried to relocate Claude, however the ‘leaf thief’ returned to his buffet just days later.
‘I put a towel around him and moved him a few hundred metres down the road to a big tree at my neighbour’s place,’ he said in a statement from the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature-Australia.
‘He was pretty stroppy when I picked him up.
‘Two days later Claude was back and he’s been hanging around getting into the seedlings every night.’
Having been eaten ‘out of house and home’ by Claude, Mr Herrington intends to build a fence around the nursery to keep any critters out of the seedlings.
‘I’m sorry Claude but the party’s over. You are eating me out of house and home so I’ve started work on a fence to keep you out,’ he said.
‘It’s back to normal tucker for you.’
In all the years that Mr Herrington had grown seedlings at his nursery, he had never seen a koala act similarly to Claude.
Claude had munched his way through thousands of seedlings that were being grown to help create new habitats for numerous animals like him
‘To me this is not normal koala activity,’ he told the Saturday Telegraph.
‘However, they don’t have too many choices of where they can go to get new food.
‘There must be a shortage of food around here’.
The nursery grows all of the seedlings on-site, all of which go towards helping restore habitats in projects led by Bangalow Koalas and the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia.
‘These seedlings are well watered and fertilised and are top shelf food for a koala,’ Tanya Pritchard, Senior Manager Koala Recovery at WWF-Australia, said.
‘Claude has developed champagne tastes and with his what-are-you-looking-at attitude has decided he is not to be denied.’
.