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Nobody likes being stuck outside in a rough storm, especially when there's lightning, high winds, and other dangerous hazards. But when you're a wild animal living in the great outdoors, you can't simply go inside and shut your doors against the storm. You've gotta hunker down and ride it out wherever you can!
This isn't a predicament most people regularly think about, in part because wild animals usually shelter out of sight during bad weather. But during a recent stormy day, one southern Australian homeowner had a front-row seat to a nearby koala's plight as it desperately clung to a tree in their backyard. Warning: the following footage is downright pitiful.
Poor baby! Safe inside their warm abode, homeowner Jordan Schuringa could only watch as the pitiful koala endured the windy storm blowing through Warburton, a town in the Yarra Valley region of Victoria, Australia. Though koalas are arboreal animals by nature, the one seen in Schuringa's clip (shared here by @abcnews ) sure looked like he would have appreciated a trip indoors... maybe a nice treehouse as a compromise?
Related: Brawling Kangaroos Create Chaos at Australian Campsite
Though the koala managed to hang on despite the intense winds rocking his tree, his pitiful predicament had people worried.
"Poor baby, I wanna wrap him in a blanket," said @fracturedmoon.
"Can you go get it?" wondered @endlezzly.
"You can't just show me this without an update telling me that he's made it through the storm ok," said a worried @lifewithero.
Update on the Koala's Condition
Fortunately, the koala's fate isn't a mystery. In a Storyful quote obtained by Yahoo News UK , Schuringa confirmed that the little treehugger weathered the storm, despite wind gusts reaching around 80 kph (almost 50 mph).
"[The koala was] in that spot for a couple of hours before it calmed down, after which he started climbing around to get some food," Schuringa said, alleviating everyone's fears. After the clip ended on a cliffhanger (treehanger?), it's a relief to hear that the little guy made it out ok!
Maybe we shouldn't have been so fearful to begin with, though. Koalas live almost their entire lives in trees, and have adapted to endure all the challenges of that lifestyle, including bad weather. According to the Australian Wildlife Society, koalas curl into a tight ball to conserve energy when it's cold and wet, and on windy days, they'll brace themselves against a lower, thicker branch on their trees. The huddled-up koala in Schuringa's video may have looked pitiful, but he was just doing what all koalas do when it's stormy!
While it's easy to anthropomorphize cute animals like koalas, they don't need our help to endure a windy day. If we really want to look out for koalas and other Australian wildlife , we need to target the real threats to their existence, like drought, climate change , and deforestation. If this is a cause you're passionate about, support conversation groups like the Australian Conservation Foundation and WWF Australia, and save the treehouses for the human treehuggers!
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