Qualla: Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) DeepPurple at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 1.0. It began with two koalas named Jack and Jill, and a man who looked at the fur trade and decided someone had to say no. In 1927, koalas were still being shot in their thousands for their pelts, the soft grey fur shipped overseas by the bale. On a 4.6-hectare bend of the Brisbane River at Fig Tree Pocket, beneath a single hoop pine that gave the place its name, Claude Reid opened a refuge for the sick, the injured, and the orphaned. Nearly a century later, Lone Pine is the oldest and largest koala sanctuary of its kind in the world, home to around 80 species of Australian animals, and still wrestling with the same hard question Reid faced: how do you protect a creature people love, sometimes by loving it too closely?

Image: User: (WT-shared) DeepPurple at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 1.0

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary: The Lone Pine

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The name is literal. A single hoop pine, planted by the Clarkson family who first owned the riverside site, stood watch over the early sanctuary and lent it a name that has outlasted nearly everything else here. When Reid opened the gates in 1927, the koala was in genuine peril. ...

Image: Public domain

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary: A Sanctuary Grows

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Figaro at English Wikipedia, Public domain. From two koalas, the sanctuary expanded into the 18-hectare park it is today, home to around 80 species of Australian animals. The Koala Forest holds more than thirty koalas in a single open enclosure, fed mid-morning and mid-afternoon, the animals dozing in the forks of their tr...

Image: Figaro at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary: The Question of Holding

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Gaz at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. For most of its life, Lone Pine offered something few places on Earth could: the chance to hold a koala. On 1 July 2024, the sanctuary ended the practice. The decision drew real backlash from visitors who had treasured the experience, but it followed a current running through mod...

Image: The original uploader was Gaz at English Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary: Science Beneath the Eucalyptus

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kgbo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lone Pine is no longer only a place to meet animals. In 2018, working with the Brisbane City Council, the sanctuary opened the Brisbane Koala Science Institute, a research facility with a laboratory, full-time scientists, and a koala biobank, a genetic depository safeguarding the...

Image: Kgbo | CC BY-SA 3.0