Greedy Koala Eats Nearly $4,000 Worth of Plants Meant for Others

A gardener growing eucalyptus seedlings for koala habitats has found his plants being eaten by a single greedy one.

Nicknamed "Claude" for his sharp claws, this thieving koala is thought to have eaten AU$6,000 worth of the seedlings, the equivalent of around $3,800.

"I noticed some of my seedlings were being chewed off and I thought it was probably a possum," Humphrey Herington, owner of the Eastern Forest Nursery in New South Wales, Australia, told local news ABC Australia. "Every night, there'd be a few more and a few more [missing]."

Koalas are marsupials native to Australia, and spend most of their time living in and eating eucalyptus trees. They are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, and are considered endangered in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Queensland as of 2022.

Their major threats include habitat destruction, caused largely by urbanization and agriculture. As of 2021, the koala population was estimated to be between 32,065 and 57,920, with huge population declines in recent years.

Claude was caught in the act after a particularly heavy night of feeding.

"One morning we came out to work and Claude was sitting on a bench next to all these plants, just wrapped around a pole," Herington said. "It seems like he'd had a really big feed that night, so I think he was too full to go and climb up his tree."

Claude was not a welcome guest in the nursery due to the volume of seedlings he was eating, costing Herington thousands. He sells his seedlings to farmers and Landcare groups that are attempting to build safe habitats for the koalas, as well as the World Wildlife Fund.

"These ones particularly are for a koala habitat, so they were just coming along for a spring planting," Herington said.

"I wrapped a towel around him and carried it down into my neighbor's paddock 200 or 300 meters (220 to 330 yards) from the nursery and let him go in a tree. But a couple of days later he was back."

Herington is now attempting to defend the nursery from Claude by koala-proofing the fence.

"It's basically just a netting fence with star pickets and it's got a wobbly top on it, so if he tries to climb up the fence he's going to swing back out and hopefully that will keep him out," Herington said.

Bangalow Koalas, a local organization hoping to plant 500,000 trees as koala habitat by the end of 2025, is one of Herington's clients. Luckily, Claude didn't manage to munch the seedlings going to Bangalow, which is helping many other koalas survive by building a wildlife corridor across the Northern Rivers region.

"The koalas are coming there and eating and moving across the landscape, which is what it's all about," Bangalow Koalas president Linda Sparrow told ABC.

"There are so many landholders that are constantly contacting us who want to join the corridor," she said.

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