WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo

This guide to WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo starts with a koala joey named Parker, born here weighing about one gram, tucked blind and hairless in his mother Kyara's pouch. It follows how, months later, keepers found he had grown far beyond his birth weight, and traces why that ordinary growth matters after Australia's wild koalas were declared endangered in 2022, following bushfires that killed an estimated one billion native animals. Before he can digest eucalyptus, which is mildly toxic to almost everything else, Parker feeds on a substance his mother produces just for this purpose, called pap.