For those of you who remember the truly remarkable photo of the firefighter giving a thirsting koala a drink from his water bottle (there was a link to it earlier in the thread but so far up I haven't found it) the sad news from Friday last is that Sam (the name given to the koala when taken into recovery care) died on the operating table in an attempt to remove painful cysts associated with a sever case of chlamydia. [Chlamydia is an infectious pestilence that has affected large numbers of koalas in several populations across Oz in recent times, and not for reasons that might occur to smutty minds.]

Sam's remains will be mounted taxidermically and used in a Victorian museum display that deals with raising consciousness about affects of human activity on the landscape.

Cheers, Rowan