@ludwigsdiana no, they are very much wild animals. they are also loners - you may have noticed apart from a mother with a young joey, you almost always only see photos of single koalas from me. To be handled by a human is incredibly stressful for them. This fella was really good at drawing blood with his claws when we had him in care last year when he had the chlamydial infection in his eye. A right little spitfire - which is just how I like my koalas, wild as they can be :)
When you see photos of people cuddling a koala in a zoo setting, the koalas are sedated, and they need a lot of them as even sedated they don't cope for long so they have to keep bringing out fresh koalas. It is illegal in most parts of Australia for even a zoo to allow koalas to be picked up for a photo - here in NSW where I live it is illegal. When we look after the sick and injured ones we only handle them the bare amount needed to fix them so we can get them back out in the wild. We all have some scars too ;)
A koala that is easy to handle is very sick and often they don't make it. We notice that as the koala returns to health, it becomes harder and harder to handle. We are always telling the public, if you can approach close to a koala it is very sick and needs to be seen by a professional. However they are not the least bit aggressive - koalas do not attack people or any other animals. They just want to be left alone to do their zen thing of digesting tough eucalyptus leaves.
Having said all that - they are probably one of the cutest animals there are, and their body shape, head proportion, ear placement and forward facing eyes make people immediately want to cuddle. Mother nature has an odd sense of humour ;)
j
When you see photos of people cuddling a koala in a zoo setting, the koalas are sedated, and they need a lot of them as even sedated they don't cope for long so they have to keep bringing out fresh koalas. It is illegal in most parts of Australia for even a zoo to allow koalas to be picked up for a photo - here in NSW where I live it is illegal. When we look after the sick and injured ones we only handle them the bare amount needed to fix them so we can get them back out in the wild. We all have some scars too ;)
A koala that is easy to handle is very sick and often they don't make it. We notice that as the koala returns to health, it becomes harder and harder to handle. We are always telling the public, if you can approach close to a koala it is very sick and needs to be seen by a professional. However they are not the least bit aggressive - koalas do not attack people or any other animals. They just want to be left alone to do their zen thing of digesting tough eucalyptus leaves.
Having said all that - they are probably one of the cutest animals there are, and their body shape, head proportion, ear placement and forward facing eyes make people immediately want to cuddle. Mother nature has an odd sense of humour ;)
That was a long answer!