Sam the Koala Rescued After Australian Bush Fires
I first learned about this heart touching story over on The Australian. It seems that a group of fire fighters, who had been battling a massive raging inferno, responsible for killing at least 180 people, came upon a dehydrated and injured little Koala in a burned out area of the forest.
One of the firemen, Dave, got some water and approached the animal to try and care for it. Amazingly, she accepted his help, and he was able to give her 3 bottles of water. This story ends well, although as many as one million animals are suspected to have perished in the blaze.
Here is a follow up news broadcast about Sam after she was rescued.
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Sam the drinking Koala from Victoria is an imposter and a bootleg
by Snakeman 2010-02-22 11:06 AM +0800
Made famous in feb 2009, it was shown recently to be a bootleg and imposter, the bootleg being of earlier incidents in South Australia and Geelong, Victoria and the animal in the Museum said to be “Sam” is also an imposter, being a female, while the drinking Koala was a male that had been a pet three years earlier, not randomly encountered in the bushfires as alleged.
Sam the scam, Sam the koala is an impostor!
Media release – 13 February 2010
Sam the scam: Sam the Koala is an impostor!
On 12 February a paper was published that for the first time revealed that the stuffed “Sam the Koalaâ€
sitting in the National Museum of Victoria is an impostor or fake.
Yes, the original water-drinking Koala is a different animal!
That was a male Koala, later renamed “Bobâ€, who had been captive as far back as 2006!
The paper by zoologist and author Raymond Hoser, went further and showed that the original video shot
showing a water-drinking Koala at Mirboo North in February 2009 was effectively a bootleg, a
“set-up†and not a random encounter as alleged until now.
The paper published in Australasian Journal of Herpetology (Issue 8 pp.1-64), went further and
detailed the fairly simple (and easily copied) forensics behind exposing one of the most successful frauds
in recent Australian history, including various other activities all successfully designed to raise large
amounts of money, running to the many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As it happens, most of the money raised went to worthwhile causes and a logical question to be asked is
why the author Raymond Hoser chose to expose the fraud at this late stage.
In response he said:
“Most of the money likely to be raised by “Sam the Koala†has already been raised, so I don’t think I’m
upsetting too many people. More importantly, the public interest is best served by telling the truth and
so it is better that it come out sooner rather than later …the fraud and the story is just too big to hideâ€.
Apparently Koalas only look cute, and are smelly, nasty little creatures! The story is very heart warming though, and has made me feel really good on a monday morning.
I want a Koala! :)
Touching story, probably just one of the many, many that accompany every catastrophic event on this planet. While dire conditions bring out the worst in some people, there are in my opinion just as many – if not more – who become their best ever… :)
one million animals ? oh my god !i feel very sad for all these animals.I still dont understand how these fires get started.
I adore Koalas, they’re just such little, cute, fuzzy animals!
It’s incredible how this tiny bear stand among humans and drinks from that mans hand…it’ really incredible!
Hmmmm, my comment seems to have disappeared as I hit enter, so let’s try this again……These awesome clips really serve to highlight how a touching story amongst all the chaos and devastation can be likened to a single ray of light piercing the darkest clouds, lifting the doom and gloom!
John, it’s not just the animals that have just survived the recent bushfires, which BTW are Australia’s worst natural disaster, that are thirsty. There have been a number of photos doing the rounds showing wild koalas approaching humans in search of water, because of severe drought conditions.