Staff at Yanchep National Park in Western Australia are celebrating the birth of a baby koala – known as a joey – the first witnessed on the conservation site in 15 years
Alan Johnson Social News Reporter
12:20, 23 Sep 2025
A wildlife park in Australia is celebrating a ‘first in 15 years’ (stock)(Image: Hadi Zaher via Getty Images)
A wildlife park is celebrating a “first in 15 years” occurrence after witnessing an adorable baby koala. Staff at Yanchep National Park in Western Australia expressed their delight at the milestone after Miffy and Louie became proud parents to their little joey.
In a chance recording, infrared cameras at the site caught a glimpse of the youngster peaking from Miffy’s pouch – something the Yanchep conservation team is incredibly excited by. Park staff are now busy keeping an eye on the pair, and in fact, the joey is believed to be around five months old. In a video shared to Facebook, the park’s senior ranger Phillipa Jarvis Carboon admitted staff are “ecstatic” to announce the new addition to the koala family.
“It’s what we’ve been working towards very definitely in all earnest for about the last six years,” she said. “So, it’s a really big achievement… it was a day that we weren’t necessarily sure would happen.”
Phillipa also explained the park will now do all that it can for Miffy and monitor in all of their enclosures and environments.
“With all the visitors it has been a challenge,” she confessed. “But I’m just stoked… I’m so excited. It’s just brilliant news.”
Writing in response to the clip, one Facebook user praised Phillipa: “Wonderfully presented Pip – very special for the park after such a long time in the making and all the effort and work that you and management put in make it happen.”
While a second person pondered: “Are you going to do a call out for a name? “That would be so cool.”
Still unsure, Phillipa revealed: “No we don’t know yet, we will wait to find out. And we have a name also ready but will wait to announce it. We will let Miffy and the Joey do their thing.”
Mum, Miffy arrived from Ballarat Wildlife Park in 2024, while dad, Louie is one of two brothers who came from Cleland Wildlife Park in South Australia.
According to the WWF, koalas can sleep or rest for up to 18-20 hours every day while being tucked into the fork of the tree – so visitors to Yanchep may have their work cut should they want a glimpse of Milly and her joey themselves.
“Their extraordinary sleeping habit is believed to be an adaptation to their leaf-based diet, as they get very little energy from just eating leaves,” the WWF adds. “Hence, koalas need more rest and sleep than most mammals to conserve their energy in dry environments such as the Australian bush.”
Sadly, however, koalas face multiple threats in the wild, from deforestation, drought, disease, habitat loss, fragmentation, and modification to climate change.
As the WWF explains: “Bushfires are fairly common occurrences in the Australian outback, but as climate changes, more frequent and intense fires happen, which poses an increasing threat to koalas.
“For example, the 2019-20 Australian bushfire season was one of the most unprecedented and deadly wildfires ever experienced by the continent, resulting in the tragic loss of nearly 3 billion animals, including the tree-hugging koalas.”