THE koala on the side of the road was stiff and still, it was early evening and Hayley Colthup could tell the animal had died...then a miracle happened.
“We turned it over and a tiny hand reached up out of its dead mother’s pouch,” she said.
“The luck of it was that a motorist that stopped was a wildlife carer.
“The joey was alive and squawking when we gently took her out of the pouch.
“She put bub down her shirt and a heat pack on the other side to keep it warm.                                                                                                                                                                                           “Once we were back in the house, we called Tracey Moffatt, another wildlife carer, who took it to the koala hospital.”
The dead koala was not the first to die while attempting to cross the busy Munbilla Road.
There have been multiple marsupials hit resulting in injury and death.
So frequent have these incidents become that she is calling for a section of the road bordering her property to be painted and have the word’s ‘warning wildlife’ or ‘koalas cross here’
Mrs Colthup and her husband Greg have lived on the Munbilla property for 23 years. She said she noticed koalas lived on and around it ‘from the beginning’.
“We were sitting here one lunchtime a koala crossed right in front of us and then climbed up a tree,” she said.
“The most I’ve ever seen in one go on our property is five, and two of them were a mother and a bub.”
She said those koalas grew bigger and likely moved on but the area was known as a place the marsupials lived and moved around within.
“The dead mother koala with her joey was the sixth hit in the same section of the road,” she said.
“This particular strip is a koala crossing, I’ve no doubt about that.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                When she realised multiple marsupials were being hit in the same spot she contacted Scenic Rim Council asking for better signage warning motorists to slow down, but no adequate response was forthcoming.
“We mark the road for children, let’s mark the road for koalas and maybe someone will slow up,” she said.
“People stop out here to take photos of koalas.
“Koalas move at any time, it could be two o’clock in the afternoon and they’ll move across the road.
“There are some koala warning signs in the area but I think by the time people come around here and see the flat open road...they just motor it again.”
Every morning Mrs Colthup walks and her Labrador Sarge check the trees to make sure the koalas are safe and still living within them.
The notebook she bought four months ago to keep records is filling up fast.
As the weather pattern switches back to an El Nino she is worried the area will become even busier as koalas seek out new food sources.
“I keep a record of the koalas that live here and every day note if they are still here or have moved,” she said.
“We mark the road in an attempt to keep children safe and I think this endangered native animal is deserving of the same protection.”