In town for shopping or just hanging out? Koalas in Moree

Moree residents were amazed when two koalas were found in a busy carpark  at the back of Assefs fashion boutique store just behind the main street this week.

The two koalas, a mum and her bub, set up home in a very unhospitable gravel car park, obviously thinking to get in early on a busy shopping day.

Council workers roped off the tree where the koalas were until WIRES volunteers came to coax the animals down to be re-homed in the area.

But while seeing koalas in the township of Moree is very rare, many landholders secretly know there are many koalas in the region.

So much so, that Moree council once contemplated putting in koala crossing bridges on some of the surrounding highways.

A koala colony near of Moree is so abundant they sometimes wake up residents with their mating habits. There’s another colony near Yarraman, but almost everyone wants to keep locations a secret.

“Koalas are secretive and so are we,” one farmer in the koala know said. “We often have one walking though our farm work shed. The grandkids have even given him a name.” Koalas were professionals at camouflaging themselves and were very hard to spot.

Someone said : “it might be a surprise to people living in Moree but it’s not to people living out of town.” “They should have left them alone, they were probably just having a look around.”

Moree Plains Council even hired a major consultant to do a comprehensive study on koalas in the area, with one of the proposals to build koala bridges.