Koalas of Raymond Island

Koalas of Raymond Island KoRI is a volunteer run Shelter that rescues, cares & rehabilitates sick & injured koalas and raises orphaned koala joeys.
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Donations: 🐨💚
Koalas of Raymond Island Inc. BSB: 633 000 Acct: 172 969 198
https://paypal.me/Koalasraymondisland Our Registered Wildlife Carers:
Shelley Robinson. 0438 588 642
Catherine Winzer. 0419 152 446
Carole Jones. 0424 534 345
Liz Miller 0407 452 089

This popped up in my memories today. 6 years ago ALBY was our first joey in care. 🥰When we started Koalas of Raymond I...
06/06/2026

This popped up in my memories today. 6 years ago ALBY was our first joey in care. 🥰
When we started Koalas of Raymond Island in 2020 we had only one small enclosure, and a small aviary. Our work and feed area was a garden shed with the tool bench scrubbed down. The only running water was a tap in the vegetable garden outside and we boiled a kettle to mix formula and to use it for washing up in a plastic tub.
We would carry the joeys up from the enclosure at feed times and they would walk around and play in the vegetable beds, and peer through the wire fence at the chickens in the chook yard while waiting for their formula to be made.

The small enclosure was donated to us from a retired Shelter and it was to be the beginning of our koala shelter. We had a working bee with friends helping to dismantle and transport the enclosure, and the following day we planned to rebuild and renovate it on its new site. That day the first CoVID lockdown was announced in Victoria.

All plans for fundraising events and local community help to build the shelter came to a crashing halt.

But in true Aussie spirit, two local ladies made us 30 koala print face masks to sell to raise funds, more ladies put there hands up and volunteered to sew more masks and suddenly we had a CoVID friendly fundraiser. We had volunteers cutting fabric, others delivering it to the front verandahs of the sewing ladies ( it was covid so no contact or working together). We had posts on Facebook advertising them and more volunteers taking orders, packing and posting them….all done safely from their own homes.

An old garage was donated to us as well as windows, sliding doors and a kitchen from a house being demolished. With the generous support and donations from our local Paynesville & District Community Bank, Paynesville Opportunity Shop & Paynesville Community Craft Centre and our successful mask fundraiser, we were able to turn the old garage into the beginning of our Treatment Room.

It is amazing to look back over what we have achieved and the facilities we have built in just 6 years, all built by my amazing husband Alan, our friends and volunteers.
I will try and put together a post showing our humble beginnings and the Shelter we have today.

Alby was our first of many joeys we raised and released, and one of hundreds of koalas that have come into our care in the last 6 years.
THANK YOU to everyone that has volunteered, fundraised and donated to KoRI to enable us to rescue sick, injured and orphaned koalas.
💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚

Koalas of Raymond Island is a volunteer run Shelter. We rely on fundraising and donations to pay all Shelter costs, including vet bills, formula, medications and medical supplies.

If your would like to help us care for our koalas, every dollar helps. Donations can be made to:

Koalas of Raymond Island Inc.
BSB: 633 000
Acct: 172 969 198

Or via Paypal:
https://paypal.me/Koalasraymondisland

04/06/2026

WILLIS spent a few hours getting to know AMBER and give his mum KESHA some time to herself.
Make sure you have your volume turned on to hear the joeys chatting. 🥰
You can see how tentative and a bit awkward he is climbing around. He did get more confident a bit later and managed a few jumps across gunyahs.
What do you think Willis and Amber are chatting about? 🐨💚🐨

04/06/2026

WILLIS went in to AMBERS enclosures today to spend time getting to know her.
What do you think they thought of each other? 🐨💚🐨

WILLIS and his mum KESHA are back at the Koalas of Raymond Island shelter, after spending a week in care at Healesville ...
02/06/2026

WILLIS and his mum KESHA are back at the Koalas of Raymond Island shelter, after spending a week in care at Healesville Sanctuary Hospital.

Willis was extremely unwell with an infection and was not responding well to the antibiotics 10 days ago.
After discussions with the Zoos Victoria vets, it was decided that Willis needed to be transported to Healesville and he needed his mum Kesha with him to minimise the stress.

It is a long and stressful trip transporting koalas to the hospital. Preparing the koalas for transport started at 6am, then 4-5 hour travel, time with the vets and first round of assessments and tests, settling the koalas in, then Shelley and Liz made the return trip home, arriving back at the shelter after 7pm.

Thank you to the incredible Zoos Victoria team of vets and nurses at Healesville Sanctuary who ran full assessments and tests on both of our koalas.
Willis’s condition was treated and closely monitored, and we were happy when he was well enough to come home to the shelter on Sunday. Thanks Liz and Bruce for managing the return trip.

Kesha’s tests were all normal, except for Xrays showing signs of a bit of arthritis in one leg joint, which was does not seem to be affecting her climbing. She is still underweight, but loooves her green smoothies, is devouring eucalyptus leaf and has consistently put on weight each week since she came into care.

Willis has been very cuddly with his mum since being back at the shelter, but he has had a couple of bursts of zoomies and is climbing around the gunyahs and sitting on his own eating leaf which is what we want to see.

He is very sleepy and cuddly in this photo, and still needs close monitoring and lots of TLC, so send him some hugs and love. 💚🐨💚🐨💚

This beautiful big boy ‘Zachary’ was released yesterday to live Wild and Free.🐨💚
27/05/2026

This beautiful big boy ‘Zachary’ was released yesterday to live Wild and Free.🐨💚

23/05/2026

Willis has not been his normal cheeky self for the past few days. So a trip to the vets yesterday was needed for blood and urine tests, which diagnosed a nasty infection requiring antibiotics.

Many of you have seen our previous post of the chubby joey coming into care with his unwell and undernourished mum Kesha. Vet assessments found Willis to be in surprisingly excellent health when he first came into care, and he was doing really well eating and putting on weight steadily.
Whilst we have been support feeding Willis formula (as mum had very little milk) we do not handle him except when he is put into a basket to be weighed each week.
Small changes to the behaviour of a joey are so important to pick up as this can be early signs something is wrong.
Willis usually loooves sucking down all his formula, but he started to resist taking it. He had been spending most of his time in branch forks away from his mum, but in the last few days was noted as very clingy and trying to get his head in her pouch. Yesterday Willis had climbed down and was sitting on the ground and when Carole approached, he wanted to climb up her leg. He was offered a teddy and clung onto it and snuggled in, normal behaviour for a joey we have raised, but not normal Willis behaviour. On weighing him he had lost weight since his weigh in on Monday.
At the vet visit Willis was very clingy, cuddling into Shelley for for all his tests, and sleeping snuggled in all the way home.
Back at the shelter we moved mum Kesha into the indoor enclosure to be with him, but Willis wanted to just sleep in Shelleys arms.
Later in the day he took a bit of formula and managed some fluids and we were happy to see him start munching on some leaves before settling back in with his mum. 💚🐨💚

21/05/2026

Savannah and Kai were released into a stand of redgums with temporary fencing, the final stage before their final release to be wild, free koalas.
Savannah has been raised by KoRI carers since September last year, separated from her mum at only 800 grams she has been a text book perfect joey to raise, luckily with no complications or illnesses.
Raising koala joeys is not an easy task, they are a very specialised species and most wildlife carers would have experience in koalas, their needs and behaviour before taking on a joey. Koala joeys also do better with a buddy their own size and age.
Savannah was initially raised on her own, as Indy was much older than her and not suitable, and Amber was an intensive care joey and so much younger. When Kai came into care he was similar age and a perfect buddy. They formed a lovely bond and spent many days and nights cuddled up together and doing zoomies around the joey kindy.
Gretel joined the duo and whilst Amber was much younger, when she was old enough she joined the others and an amazing bond developed between the four.
Savannah and Kai have spent several weeks out in the pre release enclosure learning to climb the big trees and develop muscle, strength and learning how to be wild koalas. (Sorry I haven’t had a chance to post photos or videos)

Watch out soon for the final stage of their journey….. Wild and Free!!!! 🐨💚🐨

. NATIONAL VOLUNTEERS WEEK 18th - 24th May Koalas of ...
19/05/2026

. NATIONAL VOLUNTEERS WEEK 18th - 24th May
Koalas of Raymond Island is a volunteer run Shelter.
We have an amazing team of volunteers and without them we would not be able to do the incredibly important work of rescue, care, rehabilitation and release of our precious koalas.

This years theme is ‘Your Year to Volunteer’. This theme not only honours the contributions of volunteers, but also encourages people across Australia to make 2026 the year to get involved and make a difference.

Our dedicated team at Koalas of Raymond Island are definitely making a difference. Please join me in saying a big THANK YOU to our KoRI volunteers. 👏👏👏

💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚

Offering cupcakes and chocolates managed to get the majority of our team in one place for a photo, sorry there is a couple of important faces missing.

19/05/2026

This week is NATIONAL VOLUNTEERS WEEK and we thought we would share this video of Glen feeding Gretel.

Glen is our newest Volunteer at the shelter and started with general care…… cleaning out enclosures, s**t counting and weighing, and changing the browse (leaf) in the enclosures.

Glen has been an amazing asset to the shelter taking over a lot of the hard manual work, the past few weeks he has cleaned out spouting and roofs of enclosures and the Treatment Room, trimmed and cleaned up the 200 metre driveway area ready for new gravel work. Today he has been shovelling, barrowing and spreading a truckload of mulch around the shelter and into the open enclosures.

He then moved onto an afternoon care shift and finished with formula feeding Gretel and Amber.

Koalas of Raymond Island is a volunteer run Shelter. We have an amazing team of volunteers, without them we would not be able to do the incredibly important work of rescue, care, rehabilitation and release of our precious koalas.

This years theme is ‘Your Year to Volunteer’. This theme not only honours the contributions of volunteers, but also encourages people across Australia to make 2026 the year to get involved and make a difference.

Our dedicated team at Koalas of Raymond Island are definitely making a difference. Please join me in saying a big THANK YOU to our amazing KoRI volunteers. 👏👏👏

💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚🐨💚

08/05/2026

Kesha and Willis on day three in care, they have settled in well and both have been munching through all the yummy Mannagum and Redgum Jane has been cutting for them.
Willis is being supplement formula fed and he is accepting the teat quite well, although he hasn’t got the hang of sucking it properly yet. 🙄
Kesha continues to drink a lot of water and this is a big indicator of kidney disease or issues. We will wait on their blood test results.🐨💚🐨

Address

Raymond Island, VIC
3880

Telephone

+61438588642

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