A Victorian man has videoed the moment he made friends with a wild koala by brushing prickly burrs out of its fur.
Apollo Bay resident Bruce Atkinson said he noticed the female koala outside his house on Saturday morning.
“I was just wandering out to have some breakfast early in the morning and I saw a koala on the porch,” he told the ABC’s Nicole Chvastek.
“It wandered up, which is not unusual … but this one looked a bit distraught, it was just sitting there all glum.
“I went out to take a photo of it and noticed all these burrs all over it.”
Koala allowed itself to be brushed, tickled like a pet
Mr Atkinson’s first attempt at helping the agitated koala was less than successful.
“I grabbed a bowl of water and put it near it and it immediately got swatted out of my hand,” Mr Atkinson said, adding he was later told that koalas get most of their water from gum leaves.
Deciding that the koala was uncomfortable due to the burrs, Mr Atkinson went back inside, put on a motorbike glove and grabbed a hair brush.
He carefully approached the koala and let it sniff at the hair brush before attempting to brush the prickles out.
“I just gently poked the brush at some of the burrs,” he said.
“Within seconds it decided, ‘this is alright, I’ll have more of this’.”