TOURISTS could help preserve the Port Stephens koala population at a hospital dedicated to the mammal’s care.
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Hunter Koala Preservation Society, the organisation that wants to build a hospital at One Mile, has taken a keen interest in one such facility at Port Macquarie.
Thousands of tourists pass through the Port Macquarie facility which helps educate people and raise money vital to preservation activities.
“Having a hospital gives your cause a face and it’s so much easier to ask for the public’s support with that focal point,” Port Macquarie clinical director Cheyne Flannagan said.
Having a hospital gives your cause a face and it's so much easier to ask for the public’s support with that focal point.
- Cheyne Flannagan
The first Port Macquarie facility was built 30 years ago with support from its business community and service clubs like Lions and Rotary.
It included outdoor pens for rehabilitation, observation areas for the public and served as a base for university vet training and research.
In turn the hospital’s Koala Preservation Society members have become government advisers, work in habitat preservation and give regular talks at schools and business functions.
A new facility was built in 2005 with the help of a German benefactor.
“Even having a souvenir shop and educational display helps you have a conversation with people,” Ms Flannagan said.
A 17-year veteran of the hospital, Ms Flannagan oversees the care of koalas brought to its doors and she estimates that only five percent need specialist veterinarian attention for X-rays and orthopedic surgery.
Her advice to Port Stephens has been to first build a facility for treatment and the rehab yards. The observation areas for tourists to see koalas would follow with pens for koalas that can’t be released from care.
“No carer wants a sick animal being on display,” Ms Flannagan said.
“It’s an amazing thing that the Hunter Koala Preservation Society and the community are doing [in Port Stephens], there’s a great need for hospital there.
Ms Flannagan said the stakes were high.
“National Geographic did a worldwide survey that asked people what their most iconic animals were and koalas were in their top five,” she said.
“It would be shameful of us to lose an iconic species - Australia already has the highest extinction rate of mammals in the world.”