Amanda McCormick was in shock after finding the koala in the living room of her home in Coromandel Valley, Adelaide, Australia. Her 16-year-old daughter, Taylah, had departed three hours earlier after leaving a door open for the family dog, and apparently, the curious marsupial wandered in.
“I got home from work and the dog made a beeline for the Christmas tree and I noticed all of the decorations on the floor,” she told ABC Australia.
When the 1300Koalaz hotline answered a call claiming a koala had wandered into a home and climbed up the Christmas tree, they thought it was a prank.
Amanda McCormick, who made the call, took these photos before the koala rescue team arrived pic.twitter.com/A4avFl9wWn
— The Australian (@australian) December 3, 2020
McCormick called the local Koala rescue center, 1300Koalaz. At first, the operator at the center didn’t believe the story, assuming it was a prank call. It did take a bit of convincing, initially. Photographic evidence seemed to help, and a video showing the cute little intruder blinking its eyes proved the animal was not a plush toy.
“This evening our hotline operator took a call. At first, she thought she was the victim of a prank call,” wrote the organization in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “But no, a koala desperate to get in the Christmas spirit had wandered into Amanda McCormick’s house and decided it wanted to be the fairy on the Christmas tree.”
Dee Hearne-Hellon, 1300Koalaz co-founder, told CNN News, “The koala was a healthy juvenile female and was released out the front of the house, which is in a really lovely area for koalas if they have to live amongst us. The koala was still in the same tree she chose to climb when I saw her today (Thursday).”
In celebrating the Christmas season, the adorable Koala joins “Rocky,” the tiny saw-whet owl, the smallest owl in the northeast, that was rescued last week from the 75-foot tree that would become the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
The tiny, but adult Saw-whet owl was rescued last week after accompanying the 75-foot Norway spruce from Oneonta, in upstate New York, for the 170-mile ride to New York City.