Daycation Destination: Mingle among the koalas of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood is home to the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, but a daycation trip to another zoo in Cleveland offers encounters something one can’t visit in Pennsylvania — koalas.

Only nine U.S. zoos offer koala exhibits and Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is the closest to Pittsburgh at about two hours away. It opened its koala habitat in the Australian Adventure in 1999.

The trio of furry koalas residing there are quite popular.

Female MacKenzie, 9, male Nyoonbi, 13, and their baby joey Bulu, 1, are a unique attraction at Cleveland Metroparks. Koalas can live for 13 to 18 years in the wild and up to 20 years in captivity.

Call them cute, just don’t call them bears.

“They’re marsupials,” said zoo curator and koala expert Travis Vineyard. “That’s one of the biggest questions we get here. That’s a misnomer that harkens back to childhood books and stuffed animals.”

Koalas have pouches, and babies are born the size of a jelly bean and nurse inside their mom’s pouch for several months before emerging beyond the pouch.

“We don’t know if a birth has happened until we start seeing pouch movement. Once zoo keepers spot movement (in a female koala’s pouch), they usually have one joey,” said zoo curator Tad Schoffner.

Schoffner has worked for the zoo for 47 years, 15 of those as a curator.

Baby Bulu was born on March 20 last year and zoo keepers noticed movement in MacKenzie’s pouch May 20.

Bulu loves to ride on his mother’s back.

Visitors were squealing with delight Monday as they observed MacKenzie and Bulu in the outdoor area and Nyoonbi inside the Gumleaf Hideout Koala Habitat.

Koalas are not on the endangered species list but are classified as vulnerable, with about 300,000 koalas living in the wild.

Plan to linger a while at Gumleaf if you want to see the koalas moving — it’s normal for a koala to slumber up to 20 hours daily.

“They sleep a lot,” Vineyard said. “The sleep, eat and rest again. The rest is for digestion. That takes a lot of their energy.”

Koala means “no drink” in the native Australian Aboriginal language, and they get all the liquid they need from noshing on eucalyptus.

In the wild, they prefer to live high up in eucalyptus trees.

The three koalas can go through about 300 pounds of leaves weekly.

Their annual eucalyptus food bill for shipping in fresh eucalyptus weekly from Florida and Arizona to Cleveland is more than $100,000.

Zoo officials offer fresh browse continually, but the koalas have a reputation for being picky.

“They will only eat the freshest, prime leaves and they’ll leave the rest,” Schoffner said.

The leftover eucalyptus is recycled in different areas of the 183-acre zoo, usually by mulching the leftover plants because eucalyptus is poisonous and fatal to most animals if digested.

Their fur is coarse and a little oily and although many folks visit the zoo “ooh and ahh” over their adorableness factor, zoo curators remind patrons they’re wild animals.

“They’re not tame. All the handling happens with just husbandry (vet or care) needs,” Vineyard said. “These aren’t pets.”

Koalas don’t like temperatures above about 80 degrees and enjoy the shady areas of their habitat.

Their exhibit is open year-round.

In the wilds of Australia, koalas have to watch out for automobiles and feral dogs.

“People just say how cute they are and we’re proud to have them here,” Vineyard said.

In addition to Australian Adventure, the zoo has wildlife areas that include the African Savanna, Northern Wilderness Trek, Waterfowl Lake, The Rainforest, Asian Highlands, Primate, Cat and Aquatics Building and the most recently, Susie’s Bear Hollow.

Cleveland Metroparks opened in 1882 and is home to more than 3,000 animals. It takes between four and five hours to enjoy all the zoo exhibits.