Well-meaning animal lovers may be doing more harm than good when caring for fire-affected koalas. Photo / Supplied
Well-meaning animal lovers may be doing more harm than good when caring for fire-affected koalas. Photo / Supplied
A wildlife shelter has issued an urgent warning about feeding koalas water from a bottle because it can kill them.
"Please DO NOT GIVE WATER TO KOALAS BY POURING WATER FROM BOTTLES INTO THEIR MOUTHS," Animalia Wildlife Shelter in Frankston, Victoria said.
"With all the Facebook posts about people caringfor wildlife amidst the fire and heat disasters over these past weeks, a silent tragedy is happening.
"Koalas are DYING because people are trying to help but don't understand how a koala actually drinks."
The shelter cited the case of Arnie, a koala who survived a bushfire with minor burns to his feet and hands in the town of Bairnsdale but died after a group of good Samaritans fed him some water from their bottle.
According to one Frankston Animal Shelter, you can kill a koala by pouring water from a bottle - as they don’t drink like that, if at all. Some have even died from water on the lungs. Makes you wonder what happened to all those koalas in the viral videos. 🐨😢 pic.twitter.com/h41dp0wz23
