The Killer Koala (4 page)

'I
think it's gone to sleep,' said Roger. 'We'll be able to get past
it.'

'Roger,'
I said, 'can those things move fast on land?'

'Oh,
yes, very fast, for short distances.'

'Well,
we'd only be a short distance from it.'

'Yes,
I see your point,' said Roger petulantly. 'Then there's nothing to do
except wait until it goes away.'

He
began taking pictures of the crocodile.

'Roger,'
I said, and I was whispering now, 'I suggest I fire a shot into that
animal's body.'

'Oh,
no!' Roger was horrified. 'You mustn't.'

'Roger,
at this distance buckshot will hardly sting an animal that's draped
with the equivalent of armour plate, but it might make him move far
enough away for us to get out of here.'

'No,'
said Roger firmly. 'I absolutely forbid it.'

'You
might forbid it, Roger, but I am a free agent and I am going to do
it.'

'It's
against the law!'

'I
am prepared to act criminally in the circumstances.'

'I
will report you to the authorities.'

'Report
away, Roger, but block your ears now.'

'I
want it noted that I object strongly to this course of action.'

'Noted,'
I said, aimed and fired.

Smitten
by the full blast of 12-gauge pellets on its side, I won't say the
crocodile merely raised a laconic eyebrow, but it gave that
impression. However, it did lumber to its feet and ponderously waddle
over to the far side of the beach where it subsided quietly again.

'I
believe you have mortally wounded it,' said Roger.

'I
hope so, but I doubt I've even scratched it,' I said testily. I was
almost as weary of crocodile experts as I was of crocodiles.

'So
what do you propose to do now?'

'If
we go down the far side of the beach we wouldn't have to go within
forty metres of that beast. How fast can it cover forty metres?'

'I
don't really know,' said Roger, intrigued by scientific speculation.
'I imagine he'd be slowing down at the end of it. It'd be fascinating
to see.' I was getting even wearier of crocodile experts.

We
dragged the boat to within five metres of the water before the
crocodile began to charge.

It
was indeed a fascinating sight. It seemed to jack itself quite high
in the air on its stumpy legs and raced across the sand like a
lizard.

I
dropped my hold on the boat and grabbed the shotgun.

Roger
dropped his hold on the boat and grabbed his camera.

He
stood squarely in front of me, clicking away at that charging mass of
primeval ferocity
—
quite
prepared to die to get the world's first front-on picture of a
charging crocodile.

I
wasn't. I moved to one side and started shooting.

'Stop!
Stop! You'll hurt it!' screamed Roger.

The
crocodile, racing through a hail of pellets, looked singularly
unhurt.

I
kept firing. I had plenty of cartridges in the magazine, more than I
would have time to use.

I
suppose the crocodile's charge lasted mere seconds, but they were the
sort of seconds that seem an hour long and I was actually aware of
the clicking of Roger's camera, the rushing sound of the crocodile's
claws on the sand, even through the deafening, repeated blasts of the
shotgun I could hear Roger screaming all the time, 'Stop! Stop! It's
a protected species!'

The
shotgun pellets must have started to take effect when the crocodile
was almost on us, because he abruptly stopped and rose onto his hind
legs, towering far above us, a horrifying spectacle, and let loose a
terrible bellow.

Bloody
Roger walked two steps forward to get a close-up and stood directly
between me and the crocodile.

I
had three choices. I could shoot Roger out of the way so I could get
a clear shot at the crocodile. (Most attractive.) I could stun Roger
with the shotgun so I could get a clear shot of the crocodile. (Too
tame, considering.) I could throw down the gun and run screaming.
(Most likely.)

I
dithered. Roger took some more photographs. The crocodile bellowed a
few more times. It did not seem a situation that would solve itself.

Suddenly
Roger turned his back on that towering, raucous, evil mass of armour
and teeth and began walking towards the boat.

'Come
on,' he said, 'I've finished the roll.'

I
walked backwards after him, finger on the trigger. The crocodile went
on posturing for a while, then sank to the ground and seemed to go to
sleep.

'You
needn't have worried,' said Roger as we motored out of the lagoon.
'It's most unlikely a crocodile will really go through with an attack
just after mating. He's far too tired, you see.'

I
rapidly developed an indisposition that forced me to leave the
expedition before we had any more encounters with crocodiles.

The Killer Koala

I
do not like koalas. They are nasty, cross, stupid creatures without a
friendly bone in their bodies. Their social habits are appalling
—
the
males are always beating their fellows up and stealing their females.
They have disgusting defensive mechanisms. Lice infest their fur.
They snore. Their resemblance to cuddly toys is a base deceit. There
is nothing to commend them.

On
top of all that, a koala once tried to do me a very nasty mischief.

A
small island named Kudulana about ten kilometres off the coast of
Tasmania used to maintain a large population of koalas. Then somebody
introduced sheep to the island, cleared too many trees, and suddenly
there weren't enough of the right sort of gum leaves and the koalas
were in danger of dying out.

A
National Parks and Wildlife field officer named Mary Anne Locher was
appointed to the task of rounding up the koalas and shipping them to
greener pastures on the mainland. She invited me to help her, and on
the grounds that there is a story in everything, I accepted.

Mary
Anne Locher was rather like a koala herself in appearance. She was
short, fat and round and had fluffy brown hair which she wore quite
short, and her ears stuck out through it. I suppose she was about
fifty at the time, a little older than I.

She
always wore brown overalls and these, aided by the effect of her
button nose and bright brown eyes, increased her similarity to a
koala. Her voice was soft and slightly sibilant and she gave the
impression that if you poked her tummy she would squeak. Unlike a
koala, she was very pleasant and gentle.

At
that stage I was not as corpulent as I am now, but nevertheless I was
a well-fleshed man. That is to say, I could tie up my own shoelaces
without much difficulty, but I was not athletic.

The
unkind might have thought that Mary Anne and I were a slightly
comical-looking pair as we left the ferry at Kudulana, one tall and
round and bearded, the other short and round and fluffy-haired, each
carrying a large, long-handled net and wearing identical brown
overalls, for I had borrowed a departmental pair to wear on the job.
As the ferry driver unloaded the wooden slatted cages that were to
hold our catch, he went so far as to suggest that our task would be
made easy because the koalas would fall out of the trees laughing.

To
catch a koala, all you do is startle it so that it jumps or falls off
its branch, and then you entrap it in your net. At any rate that's
what Mary Anne told me. She didn't mention that it only works with
co-operative koalas.

We
stacked our gear, camping equipment, medical kit and the cages near
the wharf and went koala hunting.

The
trees on Kudulana are all very small and spindly and we had no
trouble locating the koalas. There were only twelve, and they were in
a grove of eucalypts around a large deep pool surrounded by ferns.
They were all nestled in forked branches at the tops of the trees.
But the trees were only three or four metres high, so the koalas were
well within reach of our long-handled nets.

All
Mary Anne and I had to do was get them loose, catch them in our nets,
then transfer them to the wooden-slatted cages. In theory.

The
koalas, furry balls with their heads tucked into their stomachs,
didn't seem remotely interested in our presence.

'OK,
we'll try that fellow first,' said Mary Anne briskly, pointing to a
largeish koala nestling in a fork not much higher than I could reach.
'You frighten him and I'll catch him.'

She
raised her net so that the mouth was just under the koala and stood
poised, waiting to see which way the koala would jump. I held my net
ready as a backup.

The
koala seemed to be asleep, and I wondered for the first time just how
one went about startling such a lethargic creature.

'Should
I poke it with my net?' I asked Mary Anne.

'No,
that'll just make it hang on. Shout.'

I
had no idea in what terms one shouted at koalas, but I did my best.

'Boo!'
I cried.

The
koala didn't stir.

'Boo!
Boo!' I shouted, as loudly as I could.

The
koala opened one eye. Surprisingly, it was bloodshot. It looked at me
for a long level moment, then wearily closed its eye again.

'It
doesn't startle easily,' I said.

'No,'
said Mary Anne. 'Try shaking the tree.'

I
laid down my net, grasped the tree
—
which
was very slender, no more than a sapling, really
—
and
shook it violently.

The
koala opened both its red-rimmed eyes and looked down on me
malevolently. Then it applied a defensive device common to most
arboreal marsupials. My hair, beard, face and shoulders were drenched
with foully acrid fluid.

'Oh,
sorry,' said Mary Anne, 'I should have warned you about that.'

I
did my best with a handkerchief while the koala, apparently satisfied
with its work, closed its eyes and went back to sleep.

'Why
don't we push the bloody thing off the branch with our nets and catch
it on the ground?' I said when I was more or less dry, but still
smelling vile.

'You
can't dislodge a koala once it's got a hold on something. They've got
a grip of iron.'

'Well,
what are we going to do? Nothing short of a bomb is going to startle
that creature.'

Mary
Anne thought. 'Could you climb that tree?'

I
looked at the tree. It wasn't very big, but it would hold my weight
and the koala wasn't far up.

'Yes,'
I said, 'I think so.'

'Then
go up and shout in its ear. Don't touch it. It'll probably jump when
you get near.'

With
considerable effort I hauled myself to the base of the branch in
which the koala was snuggling. I wasn't much more than my own height
above the ground, and I could have reached out and touched the koala,
which was not far from my head. I kept my head carefully away from
the little beast.

'Boo!'
I shouted.

The
koala took no notice. I edged closer along the branch.

The
branch broke. Branch, koala and I dropped abruptly into the thick
ferns below.

The
koala landed on its back. I landed spreadeagled on the koala. The
koala was out of sight beneath my considerable bulk, but I knew it
was there because it was growling and snorting and trying to dig its
way to freedom through my yielding flesh.

It
was an extraordinary experience
—
down
in those ferns, winded, able to see nothing but fern fronds,
half-stunned so that I couldn't co-ordinate myself, with that
hard-muscled, surprisingly large fur-covered length of malevolence
trying to disembowel me.

Where
the hell was Mary Anne?

In
fact she was running around to the other side of the patch of ferns
to catch the koala when it came out.

Now,
koalas have another protective device, apart from the one they use on
you from a great height. They cling to the belly of their oppressor
and simply hang on with tooth and claw. It's a mechanism probably
designed to work on dingoes. Once the koala is clinging to the dog's
underside, the dog can't get at it with its jaws. I gather that in
these circumstances the koala is quite prepared to hang on until the
dingo collapses.

I
didn't know this at the time. It wouldn't have helped if I had.

The
koala evidently gave up all hope of escape and decided on the
anti-dingo defence. It was upside down in relation to me and its back
claws grasped my chest and dug in. Its front claws grasped my thighs
and dug in. Its head went between my legs and its teeth dug into my
crotch.

Fortunately
a koala's mouth isn't very big. But it's big enough.

I
screamed.

'What's
happened?' called Mary Anne, out of sight.