The joey was in his mum’s pouch when she was struck early one morning on Gan Gan Road in June.

“It was 4am when the driver swerved but hit her head,” carer Julie Jennings said.

“The driver called us and put her in the ditch.”

The mum, Macy, had previously been in care and had been released with a clean bill of health. This time, it was assumed she was dead and there were no obvious signs of a joey.

“I got the call to go and collect the body later that morning,” Mrs Jennings said.

“She was all but dead but there was a wriggle in her stomach.”

The society retrieved some of the un-pelleted fecal matter from Macy, which the joeys eat, and that helped sustain Mason early on.

The society’s past president Sue Swain already had a joey in care.

Mrs Jennings was asked to try and feed Mason – ‘try’ because joeys don’t take to every carer.

“He chose me, so I was very privileged to look after him under Sue’s tutelage,” she said.

He’s progressed from three-hourly feeds to six, and now eight.

“It was like being a mum all over again,” she said.

Mason is about seven months old. Part of the daily ritual involves a walk through the garden at the Jennings family home at One Mile. 

Mason likes to pick at leaves from the swamp mahogany trees that surround her home. And he likes to play on his gym before meal time.

“He’s getting more bold, climbing higher,” Mrs Jennings said.

“But he looks for me, his mummy, for that reassurance.”

He won’t be weaned off the mammal milk entirely until he’s 12 months. At this point he’ll also be weaned off human contact at the Port Macquarie koala hospital.

“If we had the koala hospital and rehabilitation centre here at Treescape we could ‘de-humanise’ them here,” Mrs Jennings said.