A mystery thief in Australia has been unmasked as a koala, responsible for eating seedlings worth thousands of dollars from an Australian nursery.
Humphrey Herington, who works at Eastern Forest Nursery in the New South Wales region near Lismore, shared that several months ago, their staff began to observe plants disappearing. Initially, they suspected that escaped goats or local possums might be responsible for the thefts.
He never anticipated that one day he would arrive at work only to discover an overeating koala, so full that it couldn't budge, surrounded by stripped eucalyptus plants.
"There weren't really any signs-there were no tracks or anything-to indicate what it could have been," Herington told the BBC. "It was a mystery."
"I guess that day he must have had a really big feed and was too tired to go back to his tree," Herington said.
WWF Australia's Instagram post showcases Claude in a contented pose beside the plants and scaling a tree within a photo carousel.
The caption stated: "Claude the koala has caused quite a stir at Eastern Forest Nursery in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales after being caught eating 6,000 Australian dollar ($3800) worth of seedlings. A mystery thief had been consuming the seedlings, and possums had been blamed..."
"That was until Claude got himself into an epic food coma and was caught 'green-handed' by staff. All fun aside, this uncommon behaviour shows that food sources are scarce, as koalas are not regular guests at the nursery," the post further mentioned.
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