Aug. 14 (UPI) — A traveler on a busy Queensland, Australia, road captured video of the moment an 82-year-old man rescued — and subsequently scolded — a koala that wandered into the middle of the roadway.
The video, recorded by witness Tracey Drescher on Beaudesert-Beenleigh Road in Beenleigh, northwest of the Gold Coast, shows a man later identified as an 82-year-old named Terry, walking through stopped traffic.
Terry picks up a koala stranded between the vehicles and a barrier wall, and carries it to the side of the road.
The footage shows Terry set the koala down, and then bend over and point his finger as if to give the marsupial a stern talking-to.
“You tell him, grandpa,” a woman’s voice says in the video.
Terry later explained to 7News that he was indeed giving the koala a piece of his mind.
“I was telling him not to scratch because I’m trying to help him,” Terry said. “And the little mongrel just kept scratching.”
He said he had hoped from his prior experiences with the animals that he wouldn’t end up getting scratched.
“If you get hold of the bear quick enough and hold him the right way, they realize — especially when you start moving off the road — that they’re getting out of danger,” he said.
Terry said he is not too bothered by his “battle scars.”
“They’re only scratches,” he said.
The man said he has since gone back to the same spot to check on his new friend, whom he nicknamed Ted.
“I had to look up and I couldn’t see him. All of a sudden he moved — I spotted him,” Terry said. “Yeah, he knew I was back.”