Hotline roster had finished at midday, so at 3pm last Sunday when the phone rang, I wasn’t expecting what I heard. It was my old mate Neville. He doesn’t bother to ring the Wildlife Cares or Friends of the Koala if he needs to.

It was a very wet night but Friends of the Koala members braved it to participate in the Lismore Lantern Parade.

Dear Editor

It was a beautiful morning last Wednesday. The sun was finally shining as I walked down to feed the orphan koalas I have in care. This gives me great pleasure as they tussle over who gets first serve of their supplement.  After many months of care it won’t be long till they are due for weaning and then the final stages of preparing them for release back to the wild.

It was a few days before leaving for Cape York that Jenny suggested (as brand new members of Friends of Koalas) that there may be an animal or two that we could collect from Lismore for a dropoff at the wildlife hospital at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo at Beerwah.

A call to Barb Dobner confirmed that we'd have two extra young chaps joining us namely Kingsley and Charlie. Following a fond farewell from Lismore's Lola and Roy, we pointed forthward to the northward, first stop Beerwah.

Brendan came into care with Friends of the Koala on 27 November 2004. He had been hit by a car on the Bruxner Highway east of Alstonville and was seriously injured.

Brendan was transferred to what was then called the Steve Irwin Conservation Foundation Koala and Wildlife Hospital at Beerwah and is now the Australian Wildlife Hospital. He was one of the first koalas to be admitted by the Hospital from the Northern Rivers for specialized treatment.

Brendan returned to Lismore on 17 December 2004 after making a good recovery from his injuries. Unfortunately he was blind as a result of the accident. Under the conditions of our licence this meant it was not possible to release him as the chances of a koala surviving in the wild blind are extremely slim.

The past few weeks have been sobering for Friends of the Koala rescuers and carers. Several koalas have been lost as a result of car hits, dog attacks or because they are in the final stages of chronic disease. These have included Simone - a beautiful, healthy, breeding female who is known to have lived around the grounds of Southern Cross University for at least the last few years.

Nowhere is collapsing koala numbers better documented than on Queensland’s Koala Coast which encompasses the bayside portions of the Redland, Brisbane and Logan local government areas.

Whilst the locality is urbanising rapidly, it also contains semi-rural settings, large areas of contiguous bushland and a major koala population by any standard.

Friday 22 May 2009, International Biodiversity Day, saw widespread devastation across the Northern Rivers of New South Wales and South East Queensland due to storms and major flooding. Despite the chaotic conditions over sixty delegates of the 112 who had registered, attended the Koala Conservation Conference held in Lismore.