Koroit's Mosswood Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre's koalas improving after Cape Bridgewater deaths

Centre manager Tracey Wilson is pleased to report only 23 juvenile koalas remain in their care and no deaths have occurred.

"They're all doing really well," she said.

"I think the koalas have been a bit forgotten about in light of what's happened so it's good to talk about them.

"There's still a long way to go for some but we've handed a lot over to other carers and many of these have been released."

The cuddly koalas have been getting up to loads of mischief while being well-looked after at the Koroit rehabilitation centre.

"It's been a bit of a circus as the little ones always try to escape," Mrs Wilson laughed.

"There's one who stays to get a morning bottle. Then it climbs up and reaches the shade sail which is sunken with dew.

"It gets up on the shade sail, goes across to the nectarine tree, climbs down then goes up the apple tree and stays there for the day. At night it puts itself back in, has its evening and morning bottle and then repeats the process.

"We couldn't understand how another one was getting out until a volunteer spotted it squeezing under the gate. That escape route was thwarted with a large block of wood. Not to be discouraged, shortly after I spotted it going up the edge of the door and then we realised it was squeezing under the gate so we put a big block in front, foiled again."

While it may seem like it's all fun and games with the cheeky marsupials, Mrs Wilson said there have been a few ebbs and flows for the dedicated team.

"There are a hive of people doing things," she said.

"Two of the other shelters with these koalas reported them having had mange so we treated all of the koalas for mange, including our other rehabbing koalas; a total of 33.

"It's a six week process and it does upset the koalas and some get diarrhoea which is not fun and we had to be super careful and not touch anything; kind of like what we're seeing with coronavirus now.

"In a way it was good because although we weigh all animals in rehab regularly, all the koalas got done on the same day and redone each fortnight. So we were able to see that our work has paid off.

"It was wonderful to see them all whacking on the weight and the change in the animals demeanor to be far more relaxed now."

The remaining koalas will need to stay in the care of the team at Mosswood until they are at a healthy four kilograms.

The centre releases healthy koalas through the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP).

Donations can be made to the centre via mosswoodwildlife.org.au or its Instagram page.

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