Jim’s Australiana Spot – 2UE - October 9, 2011

  koalas

Jim is reciting verse at ROWE GALLERY at 3pm NEXT SATURDAY 241-242 Great Western Highway, Blackheath - where there is an exhibition of Lindsay, Heysen and other artists.

Lindsay loved Koalas and made characters of them in his verse.

The koala is a small bear-like, arboreal, herbivorous, mostly nocturnal marsupial, which averages about 9kg in weight. It gets its name from an Aboriginal word meaning "no drink" because it only drinks when ill or times when there is not enough moisture in the leaves. Koalas used to be found all throughout Australia as they can live in a variety of different habitats. Koalas can live in coastal island, tall eucalypt forests, and low woodland inland areas. Since they can live in such a variety of different habitats, they were fairly widespread until the 1900's.

Koalas were hunted indiscriminately until the 1920s when some concern was shown for diminishing numbers and hunting was restricted. When the hunting season was reopened in Queensland in 1927, over 800,000 koalas were killed in less than a month. After so many were killed in such a short amount of time, public outrage finally convinced the government to shut down the hunting season and declare the koala a "protected species". Norman Lindsay's "Magic pudding" and Dorothey Wall's "Blinky Bill' were important in making Australians see Koalas as 'people' and not just a food source.

Facts:

• The Koala LOOKS cuddly and fat but is actually long and lean.
• 80% of Australia's Eucalypt forests have been cleared.
• Koalas are a threatened species

'the koala'
Leon Gellert

The native bear is small in stature And specially endowed by nature With means exclusively equipped To live on leaves of eucalypt. Its insides, though doubtless clean, Must certainly be very green. And therefore we reveal this fact (told in whispers and with tact) It’s uphill work to get koala Stains off carpets in your parlour.

Tune in to hear Jim on 2UE every Sunday at 12.30 pm