Janali celebrates her 1st birthday

Animal news | 22 March 2024

Koala joey Janali turns 1 year old today. Since her birth on 22 March 2023, she has grown from a tiny, two-centimetre newborn into an independent young lady. She now feeds exclusively on eucalyptus and only rarely turns to mum Eerin for a drink. During the weaning process, Eerin began refusing to let Janali suckle from her teat more and more often, encouraging her daughter to go her own way. As a result, Janali now not only sleeps and eats on her own forked branch, but also seeks out our other female koala Sydney from time to time.

Janali’s development is also well documented at our weekly weigh-ins (Wednesdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. in the koala enclosure). At her first weigh-in at the beginning of November, Janali tipped the scales at 488 grams. She now weighs more than four times this much.