Koalas

The San Diego Zoo is known throughout the world for being an amazing zoo. It’s a destination for tourists and it was always on my list of places I wanted to visit. It has animals you can’t find at other zoos. It has koalas.

My love for koalas goes all the way back to my childhood. All girls had their favorites: colors, teachers, foods, animals. These were defining things about us when we were kids. These were points for bonding. Of course you liked the girl who loved pepperoni pizza and the color blue if you did, too! My favorite animal in the whole world was the koala. The soft, fluffy, gray teddy-bear looking animal that ate eucalyptus leaves and slept twenty hours a day in tress. I loved koalas.

The first stuffed koala I received was given to me by my dad, on my sister’s birthday. His job had taken him to Norton, KS that day. There, in a gas station, he found a six-inch red koala with a heart shaped face. I named him Norton. After that, all my koalas had to have names starting with a K or Qu. I had Keely, and Queets and Kewela and Kiwi and Sidney, for the Australian city, of course.

Before moving to San Diego I had seen koalas three times in my life. When I was eleven, the Topeka, KS zoo was lucky enough to have one on loan from the San Diego zoo. I remember going to visit on a Sunday. I brought home a poster of K’Bluey and I’m sure I immediately hung it on my wall. Later, while living in Seattle in my late twenties, the Pt. Defiance Zoo and Aquarium had two on loan. They were enclosed behind glass and I remember it being difficult to see them. And during a vacation to San Diego in 2009, the first attraction on the list during our busy week was the zoo. That day, I kept making excuses to go back to the exhibit to see the koalas again.

At the San Diego Zoo, the koala exhibit is not enclosed in glass. The koalas are easy to see, except that they spend much of their time asleep in the branches of the eucalyptus trees. They share their space with the wallabies that have free range of the ground. In the exhibit, the zoo has constructed a tree-like habitat. Attached to the trees are tubes that hold the eucalyptus branches the koalas eat throughout the day.

For me, a zoo membership is a requirement and I visit when I have the chance. I love to sit and watch the koalas, even thought they’re not very active. They look so fluffy and soft, but to touch one is more like touching a sheep. I have not had the opportunity to pet a koala. The zoo has staff onsite and sometimes has the education center open. They have an albino, stuffed, in a display and also a hide that visitors can touch.

Each time I visit, I prepare myself for what I know I will hear from the other visitors. Everyone points at the koalas and tells their children to “look at the koala bears”. Each time I hear this, I cringe and want to tell them that they are not bears. Koalas are marsupials, like kangaroos. I want to explain that they are wrong. I want them to understand but I don’t say a word. I don’t want to intrude on their visit. More than that, I don’t want to be the crazy koala lady at the zoo. So I stand and quietly listen and watch the koalas. Sometimes they move, but mostly they sleep. I often question just how they manage this feat. How do you sleep at the top of a tree? I think even if I were nestled in the branches, I would still run the risk of relaxing too much and falling to the ground.

In 2009 when I visited San Diego and the zoo for the first time, I was considering getting a tattoo. I would be my first tattoo, and it would carry a certain amount of weight for me. It was never something I wanted, but after a divorce and huge shift in everything I knew, I decided I wanted one. It took time to decide on the perfect thing. After the zoo visit, when my husband suggested going to Avalon Tattoo in PB, I agreed. I knew exactly what I wanted. I would get a koala. I had taken plenty of pictures while at the zoo and I would use one of them. It was perfect for me.