We Gave Koala Clancy a Safety Net!

There are few things more humbling and rewarding than witnessing a wild animal in its natural habitat, which is why we didn’t hesitate to support one of our favourite foundations, the Koala Clancy Foundation, when they put out a call for help. This wasn’t a trust we were unfamiliar with. As the director of the foundation, Janine and chief mascot, Clancy the Koala, are well known to all the staff at Goway Travel. A longtime host to many of our travellers, Janine Duffy, director of marketing and a published koala researcher, has made it her life to protect Australian wildlife, and enjoys an incredible connection with wild animals, many of whom she’s watched their whole lives. It was while leading tours and researching koalas that Janine herself made a major breakthrough, identifying that each koala has a unique pattern on their noses, which in the world of wild animal research is groundbreaking. This means you can identify koalas without having to tag, capture, or disturb them.

TO FURTHER HELP THE KOALA CLANCY FOUNDATION, PLEASE VISIT THEIR CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN: Give Koala Clancy a Safety Net

About Clancy
The star of Janine’s tours and chief mascot for the foundation is a wild koala named Clancy, whose life tops any reality TV series out there. He’s had love interests, visits his mum Pat on a regular basis, or his Aunt Emma, or argues with his nemesis, Gurren. Clancy was horribly injured in a recent turf battle with a rival male. Janine and her team were able to rescue him, nurse his wounds, and bring him back to health before releasing him again. So yes, while this adorable koala has enemies, he has many more friends around the world. Janine has led many walking tours through Clancy’s forest where she not only gives an incredible wildlife tour, she also identifies and encourages travellers to help her pull out non-indigenous plants and weeds which are damaging the local habitat. This ensures a better environment for future generations of koalas, wallabies, kookaburras, and other wildlife. It was these very invasive species which have lessened the food supply for all the local koalas, and which led to the battle where Clancy was injured. In time we hope Janine’s efforts will see a much larger koala population living in harmony.

With Clancy back in the trees, Janine and the Koala Clancy Foundation were desperate for a small amount of equipment, clearly vital to their work (you can read about each piece of equipment on the fundraising page), and we love how focused they are in getting injured or orphaned wild animals back into their natural habitats. We are more than happy that we’ve been able to help them reach their target ahead of schedule, allowing them to get back to what they do best, looking after, as well as exposing travellers to a healthy, wild Australia.

For more info, learn Who Is Koala Clancy? Or, consider donating to Give Koala Clancy a Safety Net. If you’re planning on travelling to Australia, we would love to arrange for you to visit Janine and the great team at Echidna Walkabout Tours, located just outside Melbourne.

Our most popular tour here is Koalas & Kangaroos in the Wild.

Check out Janine’s Koalas and Kangaroos in the Wild video.