When Hayley Shute first set eyes on Albert, she wasn’t sure he would make it. “He was tiny,” says the life sciences manager and resident “koala whisperer” at the Australian Reptile Park just north of Sydney. “I looked at him when he came out of the pouch and thought, ‘This isn’t going to be a happy ending.’ He was five months old and 190 grams. The smallest koala I’d ever successfully hand-raised was 290 grams. At that size, they’re so dependent on their mums. But I wasn’t going to not try. He looked up at me and I went, ‘Oh, God, I’m already in love with him,’ so I took on the task.”
The task would be
