Koala Research

Meet ... Poppy

Bushfire update 6 February 2006: we haven't seen Poppy since the fire. There is still hope - other wildlife shelters in the region have taken some animals, and we are currently trying to find out whether any of them have her, but a small dead female koala was found in her area and we are afraid she may have passed away. We are missing her sweet little face - she was the koala we had known the longest and a very dear friend. We will never forget her.

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Poppy is now the koala we have known the longest - all the others we met at the same time as her have died, mostly because of the drought of 2000 to 2004.

All the time we have known her she has lived around two lovely little gullies, crossed by a walking track, with a mix of big Manna Gums, Swamp Gums, a good stand of Peppermints and a few Stringybarks, with a couple of large old Grass Trees in the centre. Perfect country for a koala! She has a sweet personality - she is a little bit reserved and appreciates quiet and gentle people, but she will even tolerate noisy children with demure acceptance.

She often visits Daisy and Rudi, and lately has been visited by Ingrid. Once we saw her some distance away from her normal area, near Uncle Tom. We were surprised, but then realised - it was breeding season! She had gone looking for him, the sweet thing!

One of our most commonly seen koalas, Poppy lives right around the start of the track we usually walk along.  She is a very pretty female, small and silver grey with lovely fluffy little ears.  Her most distinctive feature is her right eye which is damaged and sometimes closed (she may be blind in that eye, but it doesn’t seem to bother her at all).  She has a sweet personality - she is a little bit reserved and appreciates quiet and gentle people, but she will even tolerate noisy children with demure acceptance.

We first met Poppy on 5/8/01.  We estimate she is now about 7 - 9 years old.  We have never seen her with a baby, but there has been a bad drought all the time we’ve known her, and not many females have continued to reproduce successfully.

She loves to sit high in a gum tree enjoying the sunshine!

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