sam the scam: sam the koala is an impostor! · 2015. 4. 1. · depicted koala had been...

Australasian Journal of Herpetology 1

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ISSN 1836-5698 (Print)ISSN 1836-5779 (Online)

Australasian Journal of Herpetology 8 (2010):1-64.

Sam the scam: Sam theKoala is an impostor!

Sam the scam: Sam theKoala is an impostor!

This photo by Raymond Hoser taken in January 2010.

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Australasian Journal of Herpetology2


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Sam the scam:Sam the Koala is an impostor!

Raymond HoserSnakebusters

488 Park Road, Park Orchards, Victoria, 3134, Australia.Phone: +61 3 9812 3322 Fax: 9812 3355 E-mail: See www.snakebusters.com.au

Received 8 February 2010, Accepted 10 February 2010, Published 12 February 2010

ABSTRACT

On 7 February 2008, a series of Victorian bushfires killed 173 people and caused massive property losses anddeath of wildlife. On 10 February a supposedly original video emerged on the internet site “Youtube” that depictedCFA Fireman David Tree feeding an allegedly injured koala a bottle of water. At the same time (as in the nextday), newspapers worldwide, promoted the video and four associated still camera photos taken at the same time,with the Koala gaining “celebrity status” and being named “Sam the Koala”. The official (Government) version ofthe story as dutifully reported in the mainstream media (including the Age and Herald-Sun), from then until presentstated that the same Koala was cared for by a Mrs Colleen Wood until it’s death on 6 August 2009 and thenlodged with the National Museum of Victoria, whereupon the same stuffed animal remains as of February 2010.

In summary the video depicted was carefully planned and executed and not an unexpected and random act ofkindness caught on film as alleged by Tree and agents. It was in fact a bootleg of at least two similar acts bothpredating the making of this video and known to all or most people most actively promoting “Sam the Koala”. Thedepicted Koala had been “planted” for the express purpose of making the pre-planned video and associatedphotos and was Mr Tree’s second attempt at making a famous “bear” named “Sam”. The origin of the idea goesback at least as far as 2003 and probably further. The stuffed Koala at the Museum, now identified as “Sam theKoala”, is female and is not the same koala depicted in the original video and photos. It is therefore an impostor ora fraud.

The originally depicted Koala is a male, identified by the relevant parties shortly thereafter as “Bob the Koala”,allegedly captured in Boolarra two days before the (now female) “Sam”.

For the first time ever it can reported that the same “Bob” was in fact a long term captive, having been held byWood at least as far back as April 2006.

A secondary “swap” was the attribution of the relevant still images. In the first instance and for some monthsthereafter, photos were consistently credited to “Russell Vickery” of the Herald-Sun. However post-dating a reportin the Herald-Sun on 12 August 2009, relating to a (then) proposed “Sam the Koala” trademark opposition by theVictorian government through the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), the media and othersources commenced crediting the photos to DSE employee Mark Pardew, including “rebranding” this informationon the web on earlier news clips without noting this editing. The photos credited are the same four identicalimages raising further questions as to reasons for the “swap”.

Besides the fraudulent and deliberate swapping of Koalas identified as “Sam” shortly after the making of theFebruary video, an act that evidently is known to many involved with “Sam the Koala” since February 2009, a largenumber of illegal and dishonest activities have also been uncovered. The common thread and motivation hasbeen to scam enormous amounts of money in the form of cash donations from well-meaning members of thepublic or to divert attention from culpable acts and negligence that led to the massive destruction of life andproperty on 7 February 2009. Because the fraud has remained undetected to the public at large (or at leastundisclosed) and there has been a transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars to participants and entities theycontrol, the “Sam the Koala” campaign has apparently been highly successful.

Keywords : Koala, Sam, Fraud, Impostor, Money, Wildlife, Conservation, Department of Sustainability andEnvironment, DSE, Museum of Victoria, John Brumby, Premier, Corruption, Lies, Dishonesty, Venomoid snakes,Phascolarctos cinereus, stuffed, news media, Herald-Sun, swapped, bushfire



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Note: All photos and other material is reproduced as legallyallowed for fair public comment. Material reproduced in full orin large blocks is done so for the express purpose of retainingcontext and as a matter of fairness to the original authors and/or creators, so that their works, comments and the like can befairly assessed and commented upon.Some original material reproduced here may be of poor qualitydue to the fact the original images were poor, low resolution orsimilar as may be the case with material taken from the internet.

Scenes of destruction, threemonths after the fires of 2009.The houses shown here werelost solely because the ownershad repeatedly been refusedpermission by their council,state government and judiciaryto remove dangerous, non-native feral weeds in the form ofPine Trees (Pinus radiata),creating a totally predictableand inevitable disaster, thatgovernments since then havesought to avoid blame for, bypromoting diversions like “Samthe Koala”.

These photos byRaymond Hoser weretaken on 17 April 2009.



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INTRODUCTIONOn 7 February 2009 a series of bushfiresaffected Victoria, causing massive loss of173 lives and also massive propertydamage. This bushfire event far eclipsedany other similar events in Australianhistory in terms of number of people killed.This day was the climax of a severebushfire season in Victoria, that had seen aseries of fires burning in both January andFebruary 2009.Shortly after the scale of the devastationbecame apparent, it also soon becameapparent that a major cause of life andproperty losses was government policiesand actions over several years, which incombination prevented home owners frombeing able to remove dangerous vegetationfrom around their homes, which on “BlackSaturday” ignited and caused a holocaust.Councils, DSE and other governmententities refused to allow land owners totake obvious safety precautions, includingfor example preventing people fromremoving dead and dying pine trees (Pinusradiata) an exotic invasive weed.Igniting pines alone caused a huge numberof deaths during the fires.Supporting these actions before fires werejudges and magistrates in all courts and attribunals like the Victorian Civil andAdministrative Tribunal (VCAT) who blindlydid whatever the politicians and thegovernment told them, consistently rulingagainst citizens who wanted to clear non-native and other dangerous vegetation.Those who transgressed were hit with finesmore in line with crimes like murder andparaded as environmental vandals, thereason being as “specific deterrent” and“general deterrent”, to ensure no one elsedared to challenge the government’sorders not to remove weeds and otherdangerous vegetation.In order to escape blame and punishmentfor their culpability, people in government

sought and exploited any possiblediversions and distractions.One such distraction emerged on or about10 February 2009, when a video waswidely posted on the internet sites“youtube” and others showing a large maleKoala drinking water from a bottle held byCountry Fire Authority (CFA) fireman DavidTree. The video is self explanatory, butshows a Koala at first making a run fromTree and then being held and drinking froma bottle of water.Tree is dressed in yellow CFA Uniform andat the same time as the video was taken atleast one other person took quality stillphotos of the same, including at least fourquality photos of Tree in a pose offering theKoala water. Other details of the video arediscussed later.According to news reports and theMuseum Victoria and other “official”sources, the Koala shortly thereafter endedup at the “Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter”(SAWS), managed by Colleen Wood alicenced wildlife carer (a venue that is infact her private home property).The photos and Youtube video werestreamed around the world and similarmaterial (from the same source) appearedin mainstream media, including the frontpage of the Herald-Sun newspaper inMelbourne.It is not known if money changed hands inexchange for the “rights” to the photos orvideo and my own independent inquiriesrevealed nothing either way. Howeverphone conversations with Colleen Wood,David Tree and others indicated that rightswere in fact sold for both video and photosand sizeable amounts of money were paid.Shortly thereafter, according to the officialrecord, “Sam the Koala” as the Koala (ormore accurately Koalas) became known,became a hot commercial property, with allpersons connected seeking to gain fameand fortune in terms of their connection to



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it.The official record shows that Wood,relatively new to the animal shelterbusiness, set up an internet site calling it“samthekoala.com.au” (name registered on16 February 2009) as her main web pagefor her shelter as prior to that she didn’thave any shelter website.The wildlife shelter was according to hernew website consisting at that stage of herhouse, including the kitchen. She waskeen to raise $700,000 she claimed sheneeded to make a proper shelter to treatburnt Koalas and her website was litteredwith calls to donate funds and her bankaccount details.The Herald-Sun also promoted the Koala,running numerous more stories and sellingphotos of Tree and the Koala, credited totheir photographer named “RussellVickery” (later identified as a CFAfirefighter), with profits raised to bedonated to the CFA.Others also sought to use the Koala formoney making purposes.Numerous other “Sam the Koala” internetdomains were registered and on 20February 2009, a retired Amy Major,Maryann Martinek applied to register thefirst of numerous trademarks, using thewords “Sam the Koala” or similar as well aslogos and the like (at least one of whichwas) essentially similar to the now famouspose by Tree with the Koala as sold andmarketed by the Herald-Sun newspaper.Martinek is also my first direct connectionwith the Sam the Koala story, although atthis point I should stress that I have nodirect interests in the relevant Koala’sanimal shelters or other businessesinvolved in the “Sam the Koala” story.On or about 13 February 2009 one or morephotographers took photos at Wood’sresidence (always referred to in the mediaas “The Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter”),and these photos were published in

various places, including on the Herald-Sun’s own website at:http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=1These depicted photos of what theyclaimed was the same “Sam the Koala” asshown in the video and other Koalasincluding most notably an associated maleKoala, they named “Bob”.Those photos are what caused me tofinally publish this paper, as these photosclearly depict a Koala different to theoriginal one identified as “Sam” (exceptwhen the original photos are reprinted, e.g.images 1 and 2 in http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?).News reports of the time, including theoriginal reports of 10 February, stated thatthere had been a confusion in identity andthat the “Sam” the male was actually “Sam”the female, but still just one and the sameKoala.However there was no mention ofswapping Koalas, or that the Koalaidentified in the newer images as (thefemale) “Sam the Koala”, were in fact adifferent Koala to the original male waterdrinking “Sam the Koala” depicted in theoriginal Youtube video and photos.At the time of the publication of theseimages, I did not look at them and hencewas unaware of the fact that there hadbeen an apparent swap of Koalas. Asmentioned already, I had no interest in theKoalas and was too busy with my own day-to-day things, including running a business“Snakebusters” and associated reptile-related research and publications.(In February 2009, my main interest was inthe publication of major papersreclassifying the True Cobras,Rattlesnakes and Pythons).Shortly after “Sam the Koala” hit theheadlines, Tress-Cox Lawyers becameagent for the Koala in terms of media and



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Water drinking Koalas …Who can claim priority?The evidence in print...First came “Star the Koala”appearing in a bowl of water in theGeelong Advertiser on 31 August2009, shown still lapping up fame aweek later above.Then along came Noonan’s “Lancethe Koala”, upstaging “Star” by beingphotographed drinking from a bottleof water on 3 February 2009 andbeing posted all across the internet.Meanwhile Tree and Wood hadn’tgot onto the bottled water caper by 3February 2009 as evidenced by thelarge clip in the Herald-Sun featuringWood and “Kelly the Koala” whocouldn’t compete in the fame stakeswith the others.Upstaging them all was the male“Sam”, seen opposite, who debutedon 10 February 2009 with well-choreographed photos and a video-clip of him drinking from a bottle.



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Identity swap!The male drinking Koala“Sam”, shown in the nowfamous top image with DavidTree, re-branded within aweek as “Bob the Koala”,readily identified as the sameanimal by it’s sex, coloration,nose dimples and alopecia onthe forearms.The animal had no burns asalleged by Tree and Wood asseen in three of the imageshere, including the bottomjpeg with a relevant datestamp. This indicates theplacement of a pink bandageon the forelimb for the middlephoto was merely to supportthe false claim that this was arecently wild-caught Koalawith burns. See the newlynamed female “Sam” in thebottom image with pinkbandages on the forelimbs.



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other commercial and money makingactivity, with Nick Pullen and PeitaElkhorne acting as main lawyers workingallegedly “pro bono” for Wood and herKoala, but at the same time gainingvaluable publicity for advertising the “fact”.This is the same law firm that has actedaggressively for media clients and actedagainst Martinek in another legal stoushwith her former business partner DerrynHinch (of TV and radio fame), after a jointbusiness enterprise went bust.In a series of phone conversations in thelate 2009 period, Martinek advised me thatshe had applied to register various ‘Samthe Koala” trademarks and later to that,that she had advised Wood or anassociate that she had done so.This advice came after Martinek wascontacted and told to stop “passing off”using a “Sam the Koala” “twitter.com” site.The information that Martinek hadtrademarks for “Sam the Koala” waspassed on to Tress-Cox lawyers with thepromise action would be taken.As of January 2010, nothing furtherhappened in this regard.However and significantly, the Herald-Sunnewspaper published news reportseffectively urging the Victorian StateGovernment to oppose her trademarks,based on the same information, the clearinference here being that the informationhad been passed to a friendly journalistthere, as opposed to the Herald-Sunjournalist independently finding out bysearching the trademarks registrar as partof a random search of new trademarks.The media pressure worked and shortlyafter publication of the news articles,Oppositions to some of Martinek’strademarks (including numbers: 1289376and 1315073) were lodged, with theopponent listed by IP Australia as “THECROWN IN THE RIGHT OF THE STATEOF VICTORIA CARE OF THE

DEPARTMENT OF SUSTAINABILITY ANDENVIRONMENT”.For trademark number 1290731, anotheropponent besides DSE was listed as,“MUSEUMS BOARD OF VICTORIA”.Martinek, had as of end January 2010applied for a number of related or similartrademarks, using various “Koala” nameconfigurations and/or images of varyingkind, not all of which had been opposed,but for which opposition time limits had notexpired.Opponents often regard it as a tacticaladvantage to lodge opposition notices latein the trade marking process and hencedelay issuing notices to the end of thethree month “opposition period”.At the time of writing this paper, thoseproceedings were ongoing, but theconsistently unreliable “Wikipedia” as of 20January 2010 reported (erroneously) thatMartinek had already lost thoseproceedings.In a conversation in January 2010,Martinek was discussing her trademarkissues with me.She stated that there were two “Sam theKoalas”, as in the original male and then asubstitute female, something I could easilyconfirm from the photos.More significantly she was able to show methat far from being an unexpected event,the whole David Tree/ male Koala drinkingbottled water sequence was not onlycarefully planned and executed, but in facta bootleg of a similar event in SouthAustralia days earlier, which in turnfollowed from similar earlier events.Investigating the leads she gave andfollowing other obvious pathways ofevidence, it became clear that there wereseveral other aspects in terms of the “Samthe Koala” story that needed to be told asthey involved serious misconduct,unethical issues, misrepresentation andpotentially illegal activity.



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This all became more important in thewake of the death of the (female) Koalaand an attempt by those concerned with itto literally re-write history to create a “Samthe Koala” legend, and make it even morefamous than the race horse “Phar Lap”.That the “Sam the Koala” sitting in pride ofplace in a case in the foyer of the NationalMuseum of Victoria is an impostor, must bemade known to the Victorian public.As things stand, the Koala is the same as afake work of art. It is wrongly attributedand therefore arguably worthless.Finally, I asked Martinek if she objected tomy writing the accurate story about the“Sam the Koala” scam and she said “no”.I also attempted to contact other parties asrequired, most significantly Wood, but shefailed to answer e-mails or her phone.MATERIALS AND METHODSIn the first instance, this project sought toline up the published photos of “Sam theKoala” (both male and female Koalas) andidentify obvious differences between theanimals to prove that there were twoKoalas involved.That was simple!As the project expanded to find out thehistory of the Koala swap, who was behindthe fraud, who was aware of it and whomay have been innocent parties for it, Iwas forced to investigate publicly availableinformation about the “Sam the Koala”caper.Many thousands of web pages, blogs andthe like have been generated in terms of“Sam the Koala” and like a game of“Chinese Whispers” information getsgarbled and mixed up.Because of this, my inquiries weregenerally limited to so-called original“source” documents.That is “from the Horse’s mouth”.In other words, I have sought originalphotographs of original dates, or as close

to as possible, rather than copies ofcopies.In terms of video footage and the like,much the same.In terms of comments, answers andhistories, I have gone directly to thesources such as Colleen Wood’s websiteand the like, as opposed to third partyblogs.In terms of legal materials, I haveaccessed government run sites such as“ABN lookup”, “IP Australia”, governmentlegislation sites and interpretations of themby the government departments entrustedwith enforcing these rules and the like.In terms of forensic examination ofmaterial, nothing terribly hi-tech has beenused. Most importantly all the informationand facts related within this paper can beeasily checked and verified by anydisinterested third party.Website citations, unless otherwiseindicated are all “as seen” on the internetas of 30 January 2010. This is because ofthe changing nature of web pages.Pages reproduced here with different datestamps as generated from “Google’s”cache were unchanged as of 30 January2010 unless otherwise stated.In general I have archived “Cached”versions from “Google” and the like asopposed to directly, to accurately andindependently date-stamp internet materialused.All key material cited within has beencopied to hard drive and also “screendumped” when appropriate. The“ctrl”+”print screen” combination was usedto take dumps of video images and the likefor close examination of the original “Samthe Koala”, with the two Koalas lateridentified as “Bob” (the same animal) and“Sam” a different Koala.Where I cite obviously inaccurateinformation, such as seen on “Wikipedia”,



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Two “Sam the Koala’s”.Shown here top is a date stamped image from the Herald-Sun website of the female“Sam the Koala” created in February 2009. Below to the right is an image of the samestuffed female Koala in the National Museum of Victoria taken in January 2010. To thebottom left is the original male drinking Koala, this image being taken from a screendump of the original video recording of David Tree giving the male a drink of water.That there are two Koalas involved in the “Sam scam” is undeniable.



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this is noted and reason for this is given,because it is in fact an essential part of the“Sam the Koala” scam.Rather than providing a list of references atthe end of the paper, all citations are in fullin text, or at least sufficient to allowindependent location, verification andchecking.Due to the enormous amount of availablematerial, most of which is duplicitous, Ihave chosen to cite that which is mostreadily accessed by the lay person,including that of the internet, over andabove printed and other sources, usuallydeemed more reliable, in (this usual) eventthat the information is the same andapparently undisputed.As a result, the simple intellectualexercises that form the basis of this papercan be copied and duplicated by almostanyone with an internet connection andwho is reasonably competent at workingwith internet web pages, files downloadedand the like.During investigations, it did emerge that there-writing of the “Sam the Koala” storycommenced almost as soon as the originalvideo was made and even the key playersregularly altered their accounts of events.This alteration of accounts led me toquestion (and doubt) the integrity of all thatcame from the mouths of David Tree,Colleen Wood and a number of otherplayers.In the case of Wood and Tree, this doubtas to their integrity was well-grounded, dueto the early establishment of the fact thatboth knew and lied about the true identitiesof “Sam” the drinking Koala and Sam thefemale substitute Koala.While the evidence and all obviousinferences led me to similarly regard thestatements of many other parties withsimilar scepticism, inferences, no matterhow compelling did sometimes haveunlikely potential alibi’s or other

explanations.This paper deals strictly with facts andtherefore I make a point of setting out whatis undisputable facts and what may besubject to dispute, even if compellinglylikely based on other known facts andinevitable inferences.The “obvious inferences” idea is noted interms of the activities of the Herald-Sunnewspaper, who also mercilessly wrote andre-wrote the changing official version of the“Sam the Koala” story, loyally swappingmale for female Koala, changing allegeddates of events in their stories and evenchanging photo credits and early postednews stories, adding (newly) important andaltered “facts” (without notation of changes)as the trademark dispute with Martinekprogressed.These changes became apparent in the“digital trail” of third party websites postingstories different to those on the originatingHerald-Sun links. Checking of the originalhard copy newspapers at the State Library,revealed that the Herald-Sun had alteredonline versions of February stories monthsafter publication and without indication of“update” on the site.So while it appears blindingly obvious thatat least some people at the Herald-Sunwere aware of what was going on in termsof the “Sam The Koala” scam, I cannotstate this as fact. Potential recklessness ineditorial conduct (but without adversemotive), changing web pages, photoattribution and the like remains possibile.An example of what I mean is seen in thealtered online story at: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/the-facts-about-koala-sam/story-0-1111118835685published on 13 February 2009 and alteredafter August 2009 to add a paragraphcrediting Mark Pardew as the man whotook the photo of Tree giving the maleKoala a drink of water.Previously Russell Vickery had been



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credited for the photo.Another good example of the contrast isseen on the web link for an article at:http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/sam-the-koala-a-video-star/story-0-1111118815621which as of 6 February 2010 was headed:“Victorian bushfire survivor, Sam thekoala, a global starMegan McNaughtFebruary 11, 2009 12:00AM”There is no indication of later editing, butsometime after early August the web pagewas changed.The original and hard copy version read inpart:

“Mr Tree said he was surprised bythe reaction to the photograph,which was snapped by a fellow CFAvolunteer on a mobile phone.”

This was later amended on the website toinclude the name “Mark Pardew” so thatthe relevant paragraph read:

“Mr Tree said he was surprised bythe reaction to the photograph,which was snapped by Mark Pardew- a fellow CFA volunteer - on amobile phone.”

Similar changes were made to otherHerald-Sun websites, without notation ofchanges identifying Pardew as thephotographer and wiping credits to Vickery.Before progressing further, it is worthreading the “official” version of “Sam theKoala” as reported initially on 10 February2009 and then the modified version takenfrom the Museum Victoria website(updated in early 2010), reproduced herein full for the purposes of fair comment andthe like.This is not a true and accurate account ofevents, but it is what the government andthe media outlets they appear to controlwould like people to believe.

Errors in this account are noted later.News clips, photos and the like, for which Ido not have copyright are reproduced asneeded for the purposes of fair commentand accuracy in this account.When reproduced in full, this is to showrelevant material in context so as not toprejudice the authors or owners of theworks. There is no assertion of copyrightor other propriety rights of any materialreproduced here for fair comment.Material reproduced in full are invariablynews articles and the like and not in anyway, book-length or other commerciallysold works.There is no attempt here to make money orprofit from copied material here reproducedfor fair comment and research, and theproduction of this paper is a loss-makingenterprise.THE MOST IMPORTANT EVIDENCEBefore detailing all elements of the “Samthe Koala” scam, I shall detail what I viewas the most important evidence and ofmost interest to others.To grasp the fact that there are two “Samthe Koalas” of relevance (an original maleand an impostor female), although (in thefirst instance there may have been apossibility that the animals may have beenacquired in reverse order), I rely mostsimply on the original photos of the maleand the associated video on youtube, aspublished on or about 10 February 2009.The swap apparently occurred shortly afterthe creation of these images or perhapseven decided before their creation, with afemale “Sam” that had possibly beenobtained before the male had been filmeddrinking.The order of acquisition of the two “Sams”is not important as both apparently residedat the same place (Wood’s refuge) and thedecision to have two “Sams” had beendetermined at the time Tree, Wood and



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SAM THE KOALASam in her new home, Melbourne Museum.Image: Ben HealleySource: Museum VictoriaDiscovered

Sam was discovered in burnt bushland on Samson Road on 1st February 2009, during a defensive back-burning operation in Mirboo North, 150 kilometres south-east of Melbourne.

Mark Pardew, a firefighter for the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), photographed Samreceiving water from the drink bottle of Country Fire Authority (CFA) firefighter, David Tree.

This back-burning operation was part of the containment response to three bushfires located north-east ofMirboo North, which had started on 28th and 29th January. These fires subsequently became known as the DelburnComplex fires, which destroyed 30 homes and burnt 6,350 hectares, with approximately 60 per cent of the burnt areain forest plantations.1 The Delburn Complex fires were contained on 3rd February but still required constant patrolling,mopping up and blacking out.2

RescueTeams of trained wildlife rescue volunteers had been on alert since the Boolarra fires started on 28th and 29th

January. Members of Wildlife Rescue and Protection Inc. (WRAP), a specially trained volunteer group who assist inwildlife rescue, were first alerted to Sam on Wednesday 4th February, but were not provided with the location detailsuntil 6th February. WRAP immediately activated local members to rescue her on Friday 6th February, a day beforeBlack Saturday.

This complex and challenging rescue operation was led by Cathy and Mike Beamish and overseen by DonnaZabinskas. Sam was found approximately 15 metres up a tree and was reluctant to come down. In the absence of anaccredited tree climber, rescuers Cathy and Mike taped two extension poles together, extended them to 15 metres,and gently encouraged her down the tree. It was a hot and difficult task requiring considerable patience. It took overan hour to coax Sam down.

As with most rescued wildlife, Sam assumed the name given to her by her rescuers, which was based on theplace where she was rescued: Samson Road.

Following her rescue, Sam was transferred to the Animal Clinic Morwell for triage by vet Dr John Butler. Shewas then placed in the care of the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter, Rawson, north of Moe, on Sunday 8th February.Recovery from burns

Colleen Wood, Manager of Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter was able to establish, via tooth wear, that Sam wasapproximately 2 to 4 years old. She had second-degree burns to her front feet. Her rear feet suffered the most withthird-degree burns. Also known as ‘full thickness burns’, these burns destroy the full thickness of the skin and thetissues below.3 Sam also presented with blistering on her outer eyes, a typical symptom of a burns victim.

Sam’s treatment included pain relief, daily antibiotic for her burns and eyes, eye drops, daily dressings for herfeet, and supplementary feeding. The koalas treated by the shelter received supplementary feeding to make up forthe loss of 10% of their body mass caused by shock and dehydration.

Sam’s bandages were removed in mid-March, and by early April after her paws had toughened she was able tobe placed in an outdoor enclosure. While she had fully recovered from her burns, she continued to receivesupplementary feeding and treatment for her eyes.Sam – “Placid and sweet natured koala”

Each koala has its own unique personality. Sam was described as quiet, “beautiful”, and “well-behaved”, andeasily managed compared to some of the other koalas who had forceful personalities. Sam had a strong maternalinstinct, and enjoyed nursing juvenile koalas, many of whom would have been from the same local colony.

When Sam’s bandages had been reduced to two paws she would climb on top of her indoor pen and survey allthe others below her. One memorable occasion Sam escaped from her pen in the early hours of the morning andproceeded to climb up on top of a desk. She sat on the two-week old fax machine and consequently broke it.

Sam was much loved by her carers at the wildlife shelter. One of Sam’s carers, Vicki Hams, described her as a:“particularly placid, sweet natured koala. She loved her formula and gobbled it with gusto each morning and eveningand would crawl across the branch and reach for it hungrily! She did not try to bite when having her bandageschanged or her injections or her eye drops… She patiently allowed the joeys to crawl on her back or her head andwould have made a good mother herself! I have a wonderful photo of a joey plonked on the head of the sleepingSam. Sam snored when she slept! She adored a selection of various gum leaves and again, greedily ate the bestgum immediately it was replenished in her enclosure.” 4

Sam – international media starKoalas are recognised around the world as a unique and much-loved Australian icon immortalised in soft toys,

‘Blinky Bill’ stories, and tourist postcards.

The following is quoted in full and unedited from:http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/sam-the-koala/Sam the KoalaThe photo on the web page is the same animal as shown on the front page of this paper.



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The publication of Sam’s image, just days after the shocking news of Black Saturday, touched millions ofpeople. Sam became a symbol of hope and resilience amidst the loss and trauma of Australia’s worst bushfires onrecord. Sam’s image also gave prominence to the impact of the bushfires on native animals, and the important role ofwildlife rescue.

Mark Pardew’s image of Sam featured on the front page of the Herald-Sun on Tuesday 10th February.Her image was subsequently picked up by media outlets around the world. SAWS were overwhelmed by

requests for interviews and opportunities to film Sam. In addition to local and national media outlets, interest camefrom Asia, Italy, USA, Japan, UK, Germany, China and Sweden. Sam’s story was featured on numerous national andinternational shows, including the NBC, Ellen De Generes, and television programs in the UK, France, Germany andChina.

The media and public attention was very intense. Two volunteers were required to field phone calls for 12 hourseach day for a period of four weeks. International calls came at all times throughout the night.

Not only did this constant media attention intrude on Colleen Wood’s private home life, it seriously impactedSAWS ability to respond to the ongoing phone calls reporting injured wildlife and to coordinate search and rescue. By17th February Colleen Wood sought the pro bono services of TressCox Lawyers to manage all media enquiriesrelating to Sam.

Like any media star of today, Sam quickly established a strong web presence and soon became the mostfamous koala in the world. A host of websites, blogs and a wiki were created to track her progress. Her rescue videois a YouTube sensation, and she even has a Facebook page with over 60,000 fans.

Sam’s media success generated a huge public response in the form of letters, emails and offers of assistance.While much of this was welcome, the volunteers were soon avalanched by over 30,000 emails. SAWS created a‘Sam the Koala’ website to help manage the overwhelming public interest and to provide accurate information aboutSam and her recovery.Death from Chlamydia

The main threats to koala populations are the loss and fragmentation of habitat (from bushfires and urbandevelopment), domestic and wild dogs, road traffic, cow attacks and chlamydiosis.

Chlamydia is an organism that is widespread in koala populations and causes chronic diseases in theurogenital tract (C. pecorum) and the respiratory tract (C. pecorum and C. pneumoniae). It can cause infertility,blindness and if not treated and monitored will ultimately cause a painful death. It is believed that stress due tohabitat loss and other threats, such as dogs and cars, increases the incidence of symptoms.5

When Sam was first rescued she was tested for chlamydiosis, but the result was negative. On 7th May Samdeveloped urinal problems and together with the lack of improvement with her eyes, chlamydiosis was suspected.The results of these second tests confirmed that Sam was suffering from a urogenital form of chlamydiosis. Sam’smedication was doubled and she continued to be treated for this condition.

Sam’s weight was stable at 7.8kgs until 29th July, and then it dropped to 6.8kgs. On 31st July Sam underwentan extensive ultrasound. This abdominal investigation indicated that she needed surgery.

Sam had exploratory surgery on 6th August 2009 for ovarian cysts. It was discovered that the disease was welladvanced and beyond treatment. Six months of caring for Sam sadly came to an end, and Sam was euthanizedduring surgery.New home at Melbourne MuseumSam the Koala.Photo: Benjamin Healley / Source: Museum Victoria

Victorian native animals are protected by the State of Victoria’s Wildlife Act (1975) which is administeredthrough the Department of Sustainability & Environment (DSE). After Sam’s death, DSE transferred her into thecustody and care of Museum Victoria. Museum Victoria is authorised under the Museums Act (1983) to act as anofficial repository for specimens of native animals which may have special scientific, cultural or historicalsignificance.6

Sam’s placement in Melbourne Museum will preserve her story, and her extraordinary role in providing a sourceof hope to those devastated by the February bushfires. She will also play an important role in educating thecommunity about issues relating to koalas, changes in habitat, the impact of fire on wildlife and the role of wildliferescue.

Sam will initially be on display in the foyer at Melbourne Museum from January 2010. The display includesvideo footage from the original video of Sam when she was first discovered in the burnt bushland in Mirboo North,and a segment of Sam in the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter nursing a young koala on her back.

After this initial display Sam will relocate to a permanent home in the Wild: Amazing animals in a changingworld exhibition at Melbourne Museum.Notes

1. http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/getdoc/4005052d-1e0a-44c9-9876-155f80d2eec9/Transcript_VBRC_Day_094_11-Dec-2009-(1)

2. “State Fire Emergency Coordination Plan 1900hrs Wednesday 4 February 2009 to 1900 hrs Saturday 7February 2009”; source: http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Documents/Document-files/Exhibits/WIT-002-001-0813

3. Dr Anne Fowler & Colleen Wood, “Treating Burnt Wildlife”; source: http://www.ozarkwild.org4. Vicki Hams, wildlife volunteer, Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter.5. Cited in http://home.vicnet.net.au/~koalas/factsprobs.html6. http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/2877/2002-2003/2002_2003people.pdf



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Sam the Koala - key dates2009

28 & 29 JanuaryBoolarra bushfires began (became known as the Delburn Complex fires)

1 FebruarySam was discovered in burnt bushland on Samson Road during a defensive back burning operation inMirboo North, 150 kilometres south-east of Melbourne.

Mark Pardew, a firefighter for the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), photographsSam receiving water from the drink bottle of Country Fire Authority (CFA) firefighter, David Tree.

David Tree (CFA) and Brayden Groen (CFA) also video Sam taking water from the drink bottle.

3 FebruaryDelburn Complex fires contained but still required constant patrolling, mopping up and blacking out.

4 FebruaryMembers of Wildlife Rescue and Protection (WRAP) were first alerted to Sam’s situation by David Tree.

6 FebruaryWRAP receives location details for Sam.

Sam rescued by Cathy and Mike Beamish, overseen by Donna Zabinskas. Sam transferred to the Animal Clinic Morwell for triage by vet Dr John Butler.

7 FebruaryBlack Saturday sees the most devastating bushfires in Australia’s recorded history.

8 FebruarySam placed in the care of Colleen Wood, manager of the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter, Rawson. Weight 7kilograms.

10 FebruaryImage of Sam published by Herald-Sun.

Sam’s image is subsequently picked up by media outlets around the world.

Media photographer insists on capturing a particular image of Sam at the shelter. Colleen Wooddecides that all future images of Sam are to be strictly managed by SAWS to minimise stress.

17 FebruaryAfter the overwhelming intrusion of media enquiries about Sam, SAWS secure the pro bono assistance ofTressCox Lawyers to manage all media enquiries.

SAWS create the ‘Sam the Koala’ website to provide accurate information about Sam.

29 FebruarySam - left eye continues to discharge, bandage changes to three feet

Mid-MarchAll dressing are removed from Sam’s paws.

1 April Sam’s condition became stable and all medications ceased.

First week of AprilSam’s paws have toughened, she is relocated to the external enclosures.

7 MaySam’s weight is stable at 7.8kgs. She shows first symptoms of straining with urination.

8 MaySam’s eye problems continue – left eye begins to discharge and she develops further urinal problems. Sam is tested a second time for chlamydiosis and has a positive result. Sam begins treatment for aurogenital form of chlamydiosis.

The following is quoted in full and unedited from:http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/sam-the-koala—key-date s/



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15 JulySam’s antibiotic’s dose is doubled, and pain relief given. Supplement feeding increased from two to threetimes daily.

26 JulySam brought back inside. Closely monitored, kept comfortable

29 JulySam’s weight dropped from 7kgs to 6.8kgs

31 July Sam’s condition unchanged. Sam undergoes an extensive abdominal ultrasound. It was decided that Samneeded surgery

3 AugustSam condition is deteriorating despite a healthy appetite.

SAWS is in close consultation with Healesville Sanctuary and DSE in relation to Sam’s condition. DrJohn Butler suggests worse case scenario and proposes hysterectomy.

6 AugustSam had exploratory surgery for ovarian cysts – it was discovered that the disease was well advanced andbeyond treatment.

Sam was euthanized.

7 AugustMuseum Victoria expresses interest in acquiring Sam for the state collection and documenting her story.

8 August Premier John Brumby announces that Sam will go on view at Melbourne Museum where all Victorians canvisit her.

2010

14 JanuarySam goes on view in the foyer of Melbourne Museum, with free entry.

26 MarchSam is moved to her permanent home in Wild: Amazing Animals in a Changing World.



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associates took their original images to themedia.That is that the drinking male Sam wouldbe “morphed” to become the non-drinkingfemale Sam.This is seen from the first known newsreports of the video and image dated 10February 2009 (e.g. as seen online at:http://www.komonews.com/news/39430542.html and http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/02/10/2415977-koala-rescued-from-australias-wildfire-wasteland and http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE51A1AB20090211.Notably also, these allege that the saidKoala had been recaptured by one or morewildlife rescuers at the same time, thisclaim later being retracted with the rescuedate backdated to include a third player,namely Michael Beamish.Furthermore in photos created on or about13 February, 2009, posted on the Herald-Sun website and elsewhere, the swap hasbeen done, showing “Sam” as a smallerfemale Koala and another Koala named“Bob” a newly named male, which closeexamination of video and photos shows tobe the same Koala as that shown drinkingwith Tree in the Youtube video.This secondary fact (that “Bob” is in factthe original Sam), only came to myattention on close examination of theimages, as part of a later investigation (asin “I think Bob looks like Sam, let’s checkthis out”), but is easily verified by directcomparison of the images and relevantidentifiable blotches, blemishes, marks,regions of hair loss on the forearms, whitepatches, nose pigment and dimples andthe like.In terms of the original water drinking male“Sam the Koala”, now known as “Bob”,there at first seemed to be no furtherimages or evidence, save for the Herald-Sun photos and original photos and video

generated by Tree et. al. on or about 10Feb 2009. However in the first instance Ihad not closely examined other Koalapictures from Wood’s site (a potentialsource) as the confirmation of Bob’s trueidentity via available evidence wasundoubted and hence there was no needto closely check images for likeness.In terms of the female “Sam the Koala” heridentity has apparently remainedunchanged from the time of the creation ofthe 13 February 2009 images (possibly inexistence from about 10 February 2009)until death on 6 August 2009 and thestuffing and exhibiting of the same Koala inJanuary 2010, when I viewed andphotographed the animal at the NationalMuseum of Victoria.There have been numerous other imagesof the female “Sam the Koala” published inthe period between 13 February 2009 andher death in August 2009 and beyond, butthey seem to be all of the same femaleKoala and hence generally are of littlerelevance here.SEXING KOALASThis is a simple act and obviously relevanthere.Females have a pouch and males do not.Male genitalia are visible externally.Hence any lay person can sex thesemarsupials.Other sexual identifiers are as follows:Males have a large and broad nose and ahead shaped differently to that of a female,the most obvious difference being a distinctbump on the forehead region as seen inmature males like the water drinking “Bob”.They are also generally larger and morerobust than females.A male also has a well-defined scent glandwhich is located in the centre of the whitechests of mature, breeding males. Femalesand young pre-breeding males have aplain white chest.



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From the images of the two “Sam” theKoalas there is no doubt that the firstdrinking Koala is a male and that thesecond “Sam” is a female.THE KEY ELEMENTS OF THE YOUTUBEVIDEOThis is best viewed and compared with aseries of four or more photos generatedand posted on the Herald-Sun website andelsewhere on or about 13 February 2009.The 2 minute 32 second video of the Koaladrinking from Tree allegedly made on amobile phone by fellow CFA firemanBrayden Groen was posted at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSPx7S4jr4 on 10 February 2010.It is also worth downloading and saving thefour images of the same at:http://mirboonorth.vic.au/news/mirboo-north-s-own-david-tree-with-a-friend-in-needwhich depict the same Koala in betterdetail than seen in the video, these beingamong the better quality versions availablefor download on the web as of January2010.In brief the video, shows an adult maleKoala first running and then after a cut,calmed and then drinking from a bottle ofwater.In more detail the video clearly shows thefollowing identifying features:Commencement with an apparentlyhealthy male Koala running quite quicklyand without evidence of pain or burns onthe hind feet (Koalas with burnt feet don’trun because of the pain they’dexperience)(this video evidence stronglycontradicts Tree’s verbal account of theallegedly injured Koala).Male scent gland on chest (seen best at 38seconds, but also elsewhere on video)A break in the footage at 45 seconds (withreturn footage of a calmed Koala nowsitting and not running away)

Large size of the Koala’s head (at 1 minuteand 10 seconds) as compared to thesecond “Sam the Koala” depicted at: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=6, jpeg imagecreated 13 February 2009) showing aconsiderably smaller Koala (as measuredagainst Tree’s own head, the Koala alsowith noticeably more extensive pinkpigment on the nose)Extensive footage of the Koala’s front pawin Tree’s hand with no indications of pain(as would be the case if there were burnsto the foot and he were touchingthem)(also see image of same Koala(identified as “Bob” at: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=4 and also comparewith photos of burnt feet on unidentifiedKoala Wood’s website, at: http://www.samthekoala.com.au/ the specific linkimage being at: http://www.samthekoala.com.au/gallery/gallery_02.html)Large male nose (at 2 minutes 12seconds)Large bald patch (no fur) on right forelimb(at 2 minutes 13 seconds)(compare withimage showing same for “Bob the Koala”at: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=3, thatimage generated on 13 February 2009, oreven better compare with jpeg image at:http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/ap_koala_090213_ssh.jpg generated on13 February 2009.Three linear pock holes on the left forelimb(as seen again in photo of “Bob The Koala”on http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=3 (thatjpeg created 13 Feb 2009)Generally dark pigment on most of thenose (at 2 minutes 14 seconds and earlier)Wide square white patch on coat on theneck (as compared to a smaller angularpatch in the same region in the female



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“Sam the Koala” as depicted at: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=6, jpeg imagecreated on 13 February 2009.Scattered unburnt and dead leaves on thecharred ground and no smoke emanatingfrom the ground, indicating that the groundwas not hot or burning and that therelevant patch of bush was 1/ Not burningor hot and had been clear of fire for somedays and 2/ Because of this the healthymale Koala filmed could not have beenrecently burnt at the time.In other words, this simple comparison andassessment of these depicted imagesshows that:

A – The original “Sam the Koala”shown drinking with Tree on orbefore 10 February 2009 (whichthey have claimed as the “originalencounter”) was a male.B – There was a deliberate Koalaswap shortly after the video wasshot to make the final “Sam” adifferent and female Koala.C – From somewhere between 10and 13 February 2009 onwards,“Sam the Koala” was an impostorfemale.D – There is no evidence of pain orburns in the original “Sam theKoala” on either hind or forelimbs asevidenced by, A/ The Koala runningat speed and B/ Tree’s holding thefront paw of the Koala, withoutretraction by the Koala as would beexpected in a burnt animal.E – “Bob the Koala” is in fact theoriginal “Sam the Koala”.

These simple conclusions and theintellectual exercise of comparing imagesto arrive at these can be done by anyperson.The conclusions above are facts andcannot be denied.

In summary, the process followed (in thefirst instance) was this.The youtube video was accessed via“Google”. It listed the start date for theuploaded video of 10 February 2009. Theyoutube site itself listed no such date, or atleast I failed to see one.It did however show over a million views ofthe video as of January 2010.The actual views would exceed this total asthe same video was posted on numerousother websites on or about the same date.The 10 February date was coincident withthe media reports of 10 and 11 Februaryand so is not disputed. This is especiallyas there is no evidence online or elsewhereof the video and associated photos beforethat date, save for verbal statements fromTree and others as to when it was actuallycreated, (the date issue becomessignificant later).The video was copied to hard drive andwatched, but can just as easily be done bynormal internet viewing.The photos generated on or about 13February were posted at:http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=1All photos posted in that gallery contain a13 February creation date, which isimportant. The date includes the originalTree with male “Sam the Koala” image asfirst posted elsewhere on or about 10February 2009. This means that the sizeand shape of the jpegs posted were madeto conform with the page requirements andthat original images created at some timepreviously were used as masters to createthem (as in original camera images asopposed to computer jpegs).While it is reasonable to infer that the laterimages of the female “Sam the Koala”were created on or about 13 February, theimportant element is that they were notcreated after that date. Hence we know



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that in terms of published images andnews media, the Koala swap occurredsometime between 10 February and 13February 2009.That the gallery has pictures of twoobviously different “Sam the Koalas”posted in the same gallery and listed asthe same animal implies that the websitecreator (acting on behalf of news limited)was also unaware of the Koala swap,having failed to closely examine the photosin detail before uploading the images.Such carelessness in captioning images iscommon in news media and somethingthat occurs regularly with snake images,with species being miscaptioned on aregular basis.Importantly, while I have used imagesposted by a news limited employee tosubstantiate that there had been a Koalaswap, there is no evidence of impropermotive on their part or even knowledge ofthe swap, at least in this context.In other words, it appears that most if notall staff at Melbourne’s major news outletsare at the present time unaware of theKoala swap.MATERIALS AND METHODS – FURTHERDETAILSThat the “Sam the Koala” sitting in theNational Museum of Victoria is an impostoris newsworthy and something all Victoriansshould be aware of. However afterestablishing the facts above, morequestions were raised, including:When and where was “Sam” caught if itwasn’t the one filmed and likewise for“Bob”, especially as we have a video ofone Koala in the bush, becoming two in aso-called “wildlife shelter”.The official record and contemporary newsreports answer these questions.However in my own inquiries it soonbecame apparent that the answers wereboth conflicting, changing and in summary

comprised of a concoction of truth and lie.By searching publicly available information,some of the lies could be established.Notably, the public record does go someway to establishing further questionablebehaviour by those who created the “Samthe Koala” drinking water video.For a start, if the female “Sam the Koala” isan imposter, where does “Bob” fit into thescheme of things and what is known of“Bob the Koala”?Detailed widely including from Woodherself and others at her so-called “shelter”including assistant Jenny Shaw (at: http://www.koalaexpress.com.au/sam.html), isthe statement that “Bob” was “rescued”, 2days before Sam from Boolarra.At this stage there is no information as to(allegedly) by whom or in whatcircumstances.As there is no claim by Wood or anyoneelse that “Bob” (the water drinker), hadbeen drinking water at the time of locationor capture, this allegation having been post13 February 2009 transferred to the femaleimpostor, it is obvious that the waterdrinking “Bob” had been “set up” for thephoto shoot having been brought in fromeither Boolarra, or if the official story isuntrue, then somewhere else.Either way, the Koala had been taken intoa fire zone for the express purpose ofmaking a carefully choreographed and set-up video.It was not as claimed by Tree “a chanceencounter in the charred landscape ofAustralia’s deadly wildfires”, (see forexample report dated 10 February 2009 at:http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6842977).It’s also noteworthy that “Bob” was used forthe water drinking video as the Koala hasno evidence of injuries in the video, butlater as “Sam” is alleged to be burnt on allfour limbs.



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The Koala identified as “Bob” appearstame in the video, in no pain and at easewith Tree as he offers the drink. So weknow the later claims of pain and sufferingare false.The burn claims can’t be raised againstBob in terms of both his forelimbs (as“Sam”) based on the images taken at theshelter on or before 13 February 2009 ofthe same male Koala.Koala keepers asked by myself about thepropensity of Koalas to randomly drinkwater from bottles consistently stated thatwild Koalas don’t do this often, but almostall hand-raised ones do.Hence, although there was no immediateevidence of “Bob” having been hand-raised, this remained an obvious inference.As we know that both Sam and Bob bothended up at Wood’s residence (post-datingcreation of the video images), it can beinferred that Bob had come from thereprevious to the film being shot and with fullknowledge that he would be a water-drinking Koala, especially as the “official”version of events has Bob being caughtprior to the non-water drinking female Sam.Put another way, no one has yet publisheda video of the female “Sam” drinking froma bottle!Testing the hypothesis that Bob was orwasn’t caught two days prior to the waterdrinking video manufacture was almostimpossible. However we did know that hedidn’t have evidence of burns as alleged.This automatically makes the two daysprior capture claim also questionable inlight of the previous information aboutwater drinking Koalas.Apparently most wild Koalas don’t have aclue about drinking out of a bottle andliterally allow it to pour in front of them.Knowing that Bob had been especiallytaken into the forest for the film shoot, alsoindicates that he was taken there with the

full knowledge he was a “bottle drinker”, afeat unlikely but not impossible for a Koalaacquired just two days earlier.As for the fact that the photo/video shootwas being carefully choreographed, this isfurther ascertained by statements as towho was present at the time.Presumably someone carried the maleKoala to the shooting location in a bag orcage. That person is unknown, but whatisn’t unknown is that the Koala is clean inthe photo. It has no evidence of soot ordirt on it (refer to the white on the coat),which contrasts sharply with Tree withmuch blackening on his face andelsewhere.The photos of Tree offering the male Sam(that’s “Bob”), the drink of water publishedin the Herald Sun, “Twitter” and elsewhereat the time (10 Feb 2009 and in the monthsimmediately following) were credited to“Russell Vickery” or “Russell Vickory”allegedly a staff photographer of theHerald-Sun.Whether or not this person existed was forsome time unknown.However eventually it was established thathe was a CFA fireman, based at MirbooNorth and who was for the first six monthsafter Black Saturday credited with takingthe famous photos of Tree giving the maleKoala the drink.What is certain however is that qualityphotos of Tree in his now famous posewere taken by a photographer apparentlybrought in specifically for the purpose.Checks of the internet failed to reveal anyother “digital trail” or even photos for“Russell Vickery” by any spelling foranything other than the now famous photoof Tree and the Koala.The plot thickened somewhat after theHerald-Sun pressured the DSE to opposeMartinek’s trademarks.In a series of Statutory declarations filed as



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part of the opposition process, DSEclaimed another man, Mark Pardew, whomthey stated was one of their employeeswas in fact the said photographer. Thisclaim has also been repeated by theMuseum Victoria on their website and on aplaque adjacent to the physical exhibit ofthe stuffed female Koala, as well as latercopies of the same photos.The change of attribution in terms of thephoto seems to have come from the DSEin a statutory declaration dated 14December 2009 by another of their staff,namely Sarah Alexandra McKellar Haines.This same change in attribution also camein Tree’s affidavit dated 10 December2009, where he alleges the incident of theKoala drinking and filming occurred on 1February 2009.The statutory declaration corroborated the“official version” of events to this time inthat the date of the alleged filming was 1Feb, as in a week before the main blackSaturday fires, and the accessory claimthat “Sam” the allegedly same Koala hadbeen rescued days later by a wildliferescuer named Michael Beamish.The question arises again as to who tookthe still images, Pardew or Vickery andwhatever the true answer, how and why didthe Herald-Sun so consistently mess upthe attribution for the most importantphotos the paper published that year!It also raises for the first time, what role, ifany, did staff at the Herald-Sun and/or theDSE have in terms of premeditating andcreating the “Sam the Koala” water drinkingvideo and associated photos and theenormous publicity and money makingcampaign that followed.To confirm that the Vickery/Pardew imagesare one and the same is easy.Simply line them up next to one another.That they are identical negates anypossibility of two photographers taking thesaid images at close proximity.

See for example the image of the plaque atMuseum Victoria (attributed to: MarkPardew) created at end 2009, or http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/sam-the-koala-fires-australia-drink-three-bottles-water.php (attributing the image to MarkPardew on 2 November 2009) crosschecked against the same identical imageas printed at: http://ejmckennablog.blogspot.com/2009/02/fires-of-hell.html, or http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=60058732428&ref=share(both created in February 2009 andattributed to “Russell Vickery”).A third and possible option is that anunnamed other person took the imagesand the later attribution to either Vickery/Pardew is an error and for some unknownreason there has been a deliberatemisleading in terms of the actualphotographer.Potential evidence is seen on the internetat:http://mirboonorth.vic.au/news/mirboo-north-s-own-david-tree-with-a-friend-in-needwhere four of the relevant still images ofhigh quality are posted with a 10 February2009 date and not attributed to anyone.Further evidence of this is seen in thestatutory declaration by David Alan Treedated 10 December 2009, where heidentifies his occupation as “Bus Driver”.Notably Tree wrote:“My encounter with the koala was capturedin images taken on a camera by a person Inow know to be Mark Pardew who waswearing the distinctive protective clothingworn by employees of the Opponent.”Which implies he did not know the man“Mark Pardew” at the time of the event.Noting that the evidence that the event wasstage managed for media is undeniable(see elsewhere this paper), it seemsimpossible that the third identified person



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at the event was as of the relevant dateand shortly thereafter unknown to him.The wording also is consistent with Tree’s(known to be false) claims that he literallystumbled upon this randomly positionedKoala and gave it a drink, (see forexample: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6842977), whenthe reality is that the Koala had been“planted” and had come from Woods“shelter”.The photos at: http://mirboonorth.vic.au/news/mirboo-north-s-own-david-tree-with-a-friend-in-need are uncredited and mayhave been supplied by Tree himself,identified within as a local real estateagent. Interesting also is that a 6 February2009 post on the same site relating to thesame bushfires, makes no mention of Treeand the drinking Koala, indicating that atthat date, no such images or footageexisted.More interesting is that internet sitescrediting photos to Vickery, had this lateramended to name Pardew as thephotographer, as well as other details ofthe news reports.In the first instance news reports of 10February 2009 alleged that the imageswere made on the day after the BlackSaturday fires (8 February 2009), but thiswas later backdated to 1 February 2009,see for example: http://www.latimes.com/features/custom/oddnews/la-on-koala10-2009feb10,0,2330646.story, which actuallynotes the change in the “official” version ofthe story.Numerous other sites also reveal that theofficial version as told by Tree and othersindicated a different version of events inthe first stage of the story to later versionsthat backdated the claims, (see forexample: http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/02/10/2415977-koala-rescued-from-australias-wildfire-wasteland).No information to date yields who exactly

was present at the time of the creation ofthe Tree/Koala drinking video and photos,but it appears that there were no more thanthree, namely the still photographer (oneonly of Pardew or Vickery as there is onlyone set of images), Brayden Groen doingthe video recording and of course Tree, the“star” of the show. Noting that no one elsehas come foreward to state they werepresent at the time or made capital fromthe event, it is reasonable to infer therewere no others present, but that may notbe so.The statutory declaration by MichaelCharles Beamish dated 10 December 2009is most significant, as he is the man thatallegedly (re) captured Sam (the one weknow is a female).News reports shortly after the video wasmade public on 10 Feb 2009 stated thatthe drinking (male) Koala had been caughtby wildlife rescuers minutes after the videohad been shot.However, within weeks of the event, thestory had changed to one of Beamishcapturing it some days later and as ofJanuary 2010, that remains the “officialversion”.In his statutory declaration, written for theDSE in their opposition to Martinek’strademarks, he said “On 6 February 2009 Ivisited the area where Mr Tree indicatedhis encounter with a koala had taken placeand came across what I believed to be thekoala in question.”The wording is important as it indicates heor the person who drafted the statementmay be aware of the Koala swap,especially noting that elsewhere in thedeclaration he referred to his knowledge ofthe drinking Koala (male) video.There is no reason to doubt that Beamish’sdeclaration has any deliberate errors offact, however it merely shows that on 6February 2009, a female Koala was takenfrom the bush to a vet for treatment. That



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Koala was therefore not the male seendrinking from Tree’s bottle. That much iscertain.Whether or not that female was theimposter “Sam the Koala” cannot beascertained either, but in the absence ofevidence to the contrary, there is no reasonto disbelieve this is likely.Issues raised in terms of the still imagestaken of Tree with the water drinking maleKoala include the obvious transport of anapparently healthy male Koala into a firezone (as seen by smoke in the images) forthe purposes of making a publicity film andthe potential presence of a mediaphotographer without permission to be in afire-fighting zone, to take photos of aKoala.Furthermore, noting that the Koala inquestion, the male “Sam” had been caughtat least two days earlier (the “officialversion”) and that Wood did not have ademonstrator’s or displayer’s permit, thequestion arises as to the illegality of themovement of the Koala away from thelicensed premises for the purposes ofmaking films and the like.There is also a requirement under Victorianlaw for that as well, but a breach of this isnot considered serious and in fairness toWood would probably not be prosecuted.CLARIFICATION OF FACTUALINFORMATIONWhile the information within this paper isderived almost exclusively from what isavailable on the public record, or easilyacquired from investigation of relevantsources, an attempt was made by myselfto get questions answered by the keyplayers, namely Wood, Tree, Beamish andthe lawyers acting for these people.While I did nothing to raise alarm bells inmy queries (or so I thought), nearly allrefused to answer my emails or returnphone calls and messages left.However, Martinek had more success in

her inquiries and managed to speak withWood and Jenny Shaw at the SouthernAsh Wildlife Shelter, David Tree and hiswife and Michael Beamish, (all in February2010).I have been privy to the recordings of theconversations and the comments(statements of fact). All generally confirmedthe detail of what is stated here as well asthe obvious inferences within the paper, forwhich there are other potential alibis.BOB THE KOALAWhile it seemed obvious that Bob hadbeen a long-term captive, substantiation ofthis came by sheer luck.Martinek did an internet search of theterms “Colleen Wood Raffle” to find a copyof Traf News, dated 20 April 2006 (on theinternet at: http://download.trafalgar.org.au/Trafnews/2006/TrafNewsApr-06.pdf),featuring a page nine story titled “ColleenCares for Wildlife”. The story depicted apair of Koalas, the large one to the leftbeing an unmistakable younger “Bob” theKoala. At a glance the Koala wasrecognizable, but distinctive matchingfeatures are distinctive nose colour anddimples and the alopecia (hair loss) on theforearm, which is rare in Koalas of the agethat one was in 2006.Hence we now knew that the random act ofgiving a bush Koala had been a faked actinvolving an animal that had been captiveas far back as 2006!We further knew that both Tree and Woodhad therefore been conspiracy to the act.Also relevant to Bob the Koala is that whilethere were claims of burns on the feet ofBob, the photos of Bob that emerged on 13February conflicted in that some showedhim with bandaged feet and others didn’t.Those showing him with bandaged feetmust have been taken after the others asthe unbandaged feet didn’t have flatteningof the fur as would be expected ifbandages had been removed or changed.



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Above: A photo of a younger as yet unnamed “Bob” thedrinking Koala (left) as seen in Traf News in April 2006.Below is the same animal with David Tree (then called“Sam”) and at “Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter” inFebruary 2009, renamed “Bob”. Notice the same “nosedimples” and forearm alopecia in all images.



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In other words the bandages had beenadded solely for the purposes of the photosand not because of any actual burns.(The same occurred in terms of the stuffedfemale “Sam” the Koala seen at theMuseum of Victoria in 2010, that sportedbandages on the feet, even though it hadbeen widely published that the burns hadtotally healed prior to the female Koala’sdeath, including as shown in an image onWood’s own site taken the dfay before thefemale Sam died, as in 5 August 2009).DATES ISSUESShortly after the Youtube video emerged, itwas widely reported that the video had infact been made prior to the Black Saturdayfires, the claim being 1 February 2009 asthe filming date.Noting that the water drinking act itself wasdishonest in that a “drinking” Koala hadbeen “planted” for the purpose with videoand still cameras on the ready, and that thevideo didn’t emerge until 9 or 10 February2009, the logical questions became whythe delay in getting the film to market?This is especially noting the speed andsophistication of the media campaign thataccompanied the drinking Koala caper inthe days that followed.Furthermore if the film had been createdon 1 February, neither Tree or anyone elsewould have been aware of the impendingand generally unforeseen fire disaster tendays later and hence would have had nomotive to with-hold the video for ten days.There were adverse reports about thevideo based on the date of allegedproduction, along the lines of the video pre-dating the actual “Black Saturday” fires andnot being at one of the most devastatingburns, but because the general timing ofthe video matched the date of the fires,these were soon overcome.Noting that the drinking Koala video andphotos only emerged on 10 February, andfrom diverse sources (as in at least three

people involved in their making, namelyTree, Pardow/Vickerey (assuming for amoment that only one may have beeninvolved) and Brayden Groen, the 1February date of generation seemedunlikely.Furthermore, because of the fact that themale drinking koala filmed was not thesame as the female “Sam”, it is entirelypossible that the male was actuallyacquired after the female (by Tree) andthen filmed, with both filmed again on orabout 13 February at Wood’s “Shelter”.Regardless of when the two Koalas,namely Bob and Sam, as presented to themedia and photographed at Woods’ shelteron or about 13 February 2009, wereactually acquired by her, what is known isthat the video of the male drinking waterwas not in existence prior to 6 February2009 (see website: http://mirboonorth.vic.au/news/bushfire postedon 6 February 2009.Hence it became a point of inquiry to see ifthere was a reason to backdate the film’salleged production date to claim datepriority over something similar.Martinek had already checked the same asa result of her preparation for hertrademarks disputes and had apparentlydone similar homework predating her 20February registration application.She had found there were several issuesall of which further supported the idea thatthe male “Sam the Koala” drinking frombottle skit had been planned and executedas a media stunt and was in fact a bootlegof an earlier event, deliberately notreported by the local media in order to givethe “Sam the Koala” caper an air ofuniqueness and originality.It’s generally known in Australia thatKoala’s don’t regularly drink water, or atleast that’s the perception. The word“Koala” allegedly comes from an Aboriginaldialect meaning doesn’t drink water.



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The digitalevidence here

and on numerousother news

websites putsthis drinking

Koala a full weekahead of David

Tree’s male“Sam”the Koala.



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Hence the concept of a Koala drinking andfrom a bottle at that, is truly remarkable tomost people, which is why the “Sam theKoala” caper became so big.On 5 February 2009, an ABC Adelaidereporter Tim Noonan, was photographedgiving a Koala a drink of bottled water (seehttp://blogs.abc.net.au/nsw/2009/02/hot-koalas.html as an example). His clothingwas yellow as seen a week later in theTree images and the water bottle similar.Even the pose for the photo was the same.This image had also done the roundsglobally via news websites and the like.Notably that image had been uploaded theday it was taken, as in immediately afterbeing created.Noonan tried to promote his Koala underthe name “Lance the Koala”, named afterprofessional cyclist Lance Armstrong.The Noonan and Tree images are so closeto identical in view and timing, it’d be hardto imagine that the latter was original interms of the former.By claiming 1 February 2009 as theproduction date for the (male) “Sam”drinking bottled water video, Tree, Pardow/Vickerey (if either were present at theevent) and Brayden Groen would be ableto deflect the inevitable bootlegging claimsover their identical Koala drink from bottleskit.That such claims haven’t yet appeared inprint or online, indicates that thebackdating strategy worked. However inthis case, the digital trail doesn’t lie andNoonan beats the Victorians by a week!The Noonan photo opportunity was itselfpredated by several other closely linkedKoala drinking events, most notably oneposted on youtube on 31 January 2009(see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz6fwDph8wQ&eurl) of anAdelaide man giving a Koala a drink fromhis hose and another widely reportedincident in Victoria of a Koala drinking from

a swimming pool.The Noonan incident was the only widelyreported case of Koala drink from bottleuntil 10 February 2009 (e.g. http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/254280,australias-parched-koalas-win-hearts-worldwide.html from 5 February2009 and as a later example http://www.peoplepets.com/news/pets-in-the-news/koalas-desperate-for-water-in-australian-heat-wave/1 from 10 February2009) with references to other similarincidents in the various news reports (as indrink from hose, from swimming pool andin bucket of water).However there were no David Tree Koalastories or pictures until 10 February 2009and later.In other words, it is fair to assume that theclaimed 1 February production date for thevideo and images is not true. It iseffectively impossible to imagine Tree andcohorts sitting quietly on such a video andphotographic images while Noonan andothers were gaining publicity for the sameelsewhere, especially as for a whole weekpreceding the Black Saturday event of 7February 2009, there was no reasonableindication or expectation of such a majorfire event about to occur on that particulardate.There has never been a public explanationfor the alleged ten-day delay in getting thevideo and images to market.The sequence of events on the publicrecord can lead to no other conclusion butthat the Tree video and photos was abootleg of the Noonan images or onespredating that.As for the idea that Tree had been firefighting and randomly encountered thedrinking Koala, another example seen is onthe website:http://koalasam.com/Mr. Tree is quoted saying:

“I could see she had sore feet and



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was in trouble, so I pulled over thefire truck. She just plonked herselfdown, as if to say ‘I’m beat’,” hesaid. “I offered her a drink and shedrank three bottles. “The mostamazing part was when shegrabbed my hand. I will never forgetthat.”

This is amazing considering the known factthat it was all in the middle of a bushfirezone, where public and media aresupposedly excluded and yet he had beenfilmed and photographed by a CFA,Herald/Sun or DSE photographer (we areuncertain as to which), conveniently onhand, offering the Koala a drink, who justhappened to be waiting in the bush for theman with the drink for the Koala to arriveand making sure that the man held hisbottle of “H2O” mineral water exactlycorrect so as to show the label.The random act of coincidence idea is alsodiscounted when one looks at Tree’s ownpast with animals.Following the release of the Drinking Koalavideo, Tree has traveled extensivelypromoting himself as another “Steve Irwin”,(see for example: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/wildlife-warrior-steps-up/story-0-1111119012763),and more importantly, prior to the drinkingKoala event of February 2009, he’d tried tomake another “bear” famous.In 2003, he tried to make “Sam theFireman, a teddy bear” equally famous, buthad less success (see: http://www.latrobevalleyexpress.com.au/news/local/news/general/furry-friends-for-life/1441182.aspx and the quotes directlyattributed to him).It’d be hard to argue that the common linkof “bear” and the name “Sam” are merecoincidences.The same news report stated:

“David’s connection with Australianwildlife started long before hisencounter with either of the Sams.

When he was 18, David picked up akoala he found on the road, placed itin the front of his overalls and took itto a wildlife carer, who was amazedthe ageing koala had not hurtDavid.”

In other words, it is evident that Tree hadKoala handling skills predating the Koaladrinking video and had contact with at leastone wildlife carer and that presumablyexplained in part why he was chosen to bethe front man for the premeditated andbootlegged Koala skit.Tree, et. al. may claim that the precedingKoala events, including the Noonan Koaladrink from bottle event, widely publicisedfive days before his own event are merelycoincidences, but for my part at least, anysuch claim if made would not be believed.Furthermore an even more indictable pieceof evidence emerges on a facebook webpage dedicated to “Sam the Koala”, at:http://www.facebook.com/samthekoala?v=wall, which provides oneof a number of well-documented linksbetween Tree and author RosemarieDusting.Written in response to a posted link aboutMartinek’s trademark case she stated:

“So they should. It is so unAustralian when a person can stealanothers copyright. In this case‘Sam The Koala’ which was createdand copyrighted by me in Victoria in1988. David Tree and I would like tothank the tens of thousands ofpeople for your support, after weboth appeared in the media, as towhat had been done to us. We willcontinue our work together for thegood of our Koala’s and all ourunique Australian species . Thanksagain Rose-Marie Dusting & DavidTree.December 27, 2009 at 8:10pm“

In other words, while the planning for the



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video of the Koala drinking bottled waterprobably only emerged after the Noonan 5February event, or at best after the 31January youtube video of the Koaladrinking from a hose, the planning of a“Sam the Koala” megastar had been on thebackburner for some time.According to a private e-mail Dusting sentMartinek and posted elsewhere, Dustinghad claimed to have written a book titled“Sam the Koala” way back in 1988 and asof 2009 was still trying to get it published.This alleged delay in getting to print didn’thowever stop her from asserting copyrightover the name “Sam the Koala”.I have doubts about the veracity ofDusting’s account (even though she maybe correct), for several reasons, includingthat in an e-mail to myself dated 31January 2010 and post-dating those toMartinek, she had back-dated her priorityclaim for “Sam the Koala” to 1986!Interestingly however is that in the statutorydeclaration of Michael Beamish referred toearlier, he asserted inventing the name“Sam the Koala” as recently as on 6February 2009, claiming the name camefrom the road it was found near, namelySamson Road.As for the concept of Koalas that survivebushfires becoming media stars. This isnot something David Tree and the othersinvented either.“Star the Koala”, apparently emerged frombushfires at Evans Head, NSW, inFebruary 2003, being the only one of six tosurvive. She died in 2007 (see forexample: http://www.friendsofthekoala.org/fok/star).That Koala also became a local star inmore ways than one.Then there was the devastating fires in theACT in January 2003, that killed peopleand wildlife. A local Koala there named“Lucky” that survived burns became a localmedia star (see for example: http://

www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/lucky-charmed-city-to-the-end/813050.aspx and http://www.bushfirerecovery.act.gov.au/lucky/index.htm or any of the countless similarweb pages that emerge from any “Google”search.As for why “Sam the Koala” eclipsed allother Koalas in terms of the quest forstardom, the reason was simple.The media campaign for the Koala wasconsiderably more sophisticated than anypreceding it.The image of the Koala drinking from abottle of water was so unlike commonperceptions of Koalas, that this, more thananything else put (the male) Sam abovethe rest.Noonan’s Koala that predated the Victorianversion had insurmountable difficulties.While there’s little doubt that it too wassimilarly set-up, the story line of a “randomencounter” meant that the wild Koalamoved on never to be seen again.With just one or a few still images of thesaid Koala, the story ran it’s natural life of afew days and in the absence of anything“new” it died a natural death.By contrast the Victorian bottle drinkingKoala (later swapped to become anotherKoala) had numerous attributes to keep thestory alive.Noonan’s “Lance the Koala” was widelyreported in South Australia and theinternet, but not in the Victorian media.This allowed the bottle-drinking Victorianbootleg to maintain an air of originality, onlyto be exposed to the few who did internetsearches of the same sort of thing.With the celebrity Koala safely held at a“zoo” of sorts (even if it were Wood’s livingroom or kitchen at times as seen on herown website), the news media running withthe story (read Herald-Sun and affiliates),could add new twists to the tale as the



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Conflicting and back-dated claims of invention of “Sam the Koala”, the first being1988 and the second two years earlier. The claims of invention first surfaced afterthe battle over ownership of “Sam the Koala” trademarks. The children’s bookshown on this page (front cover) is not by the author of the emails.Released at end 2009, the second page states in full:‘This is a work of fiction, inspired by the ‘Sam the Koala’ story reported in themedia in 2009 during gthe Victorian Black Saturday Bushfires .’



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allegedly burnt animal recovered, fell inlove and so on.In February 2009, the lawyers appointed toact for Wood and her Koalas noted to themedia that they were pursuing book, filmand other money making opportunities andstated a hope that Bob would make Sampregnant and hopefully Sam would have ababy.In terms of Koala number 1 (the waterdrinking male), there was no obviousevidence of burns or ill health on the videoor in the photos generated at the shelterand in terms of the claims of burns onKoala 2, the female “Sam”, claims of burnsand any other ailments cannot be disputed,especially as there is little if any availablefootage of undressed limbs and/or of thatKoala in the bush at time of capture.One assumes that the image of a burntfoot of a Koala on Wood’s website galleryis of the female “Sam” as are othersposted elsewhere.The love affair between the drinking male(renamed “Bob”) with the new impostorSam, also added fuel to the media frenzyof post bushfire rehabilitation andregeneration.Even the untimely death, allegedly fromChlamydia related complications, becamecause for celebration and news reportingas the Koala was then stuffed (in moreways than one) and sent to occupy pride ofplace at the Melbourne Museum.DATES ISSUES- FORENSICSOn 31 January 2009, Wildlife Carer fromAnakie, Sarah Murdoch, appeared in theGeelong Advertiser (notably a NewsLimited Paper) with her “Star” the Koalasplashing in and drinking from a waterbowl.“Star” was the first of several relevantinternet sensations involving Koalas,including those already mentioned.Other wildlife shelters also paraded theirburnt and thirsty Koalas in the newspapers

in order to get the sympathy donations.Included were “Johno” the Koala paradedby Tehree Gordon of the JirrahlingaWildlife Sanctuary, Barwon Heads in theGeelong Advertiser on 10 February,another at the same time from HealesvilleSanctuary and a brutally burnt Koalahanded in to a shelter at Kilmore shown inthe Age on 11 February 2009.Koalas are a regular for the wildlife sheltersympathy vote after bushfires, due to theirreputation as being cute and cuddly.By way of example, you never see imagesof injured and burnt snakes after bushfires,because although they too are wildlife, thefact is that the majority of the public arehappy to see them burnt to death.Notable in this early February Koalaparade for the media was that in theHerald-Sun on 3 February 2009, MeganMcNaught (Wood’s main contact at thispaper), did a large feature article onColleen Wood and her shelter and theinjured Koalas within. Shown was a Koalanamed “Kelly”, but no “Sam” or “Bob”,indicating at that stage, no images hadbeen created of the pair in terms of the bigstory set to break on 10 or 11 Feb 2009.McNaught was to be the main journalistfrom the Herald-Sun posting the moststories about “Sam the Koala” in the post10 February 2009 period, and who wouldtherefore presumably be the most likelycandidate with that company to know of theKoala swap fraud.However the best forensic evidence is interms of the original Koala drinking videothat appeared on or about 10-11 Feb 2009.The scene is a forest floor that is generallyblackened by fire.Notwithstanding that the forest is burnt,there is no evidence of smouldering woodor tree trunks. In fact nothing is burning.Present however is a pall of smoke, notinga fire in the general vicinity.



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When a forest fire burns, it takes somedays for all wood to stop burning andsmouldering.This puts a time-line of about a week (atbest) for the video to have been shot in thearea that burnt. Put another way, MeganMcNaught noted in her story of 3 Februarythat the (relevant Boolarra) fires were “stillsmouldering”, yes her words.Hence the video couldn’t have been shotas of that date, namely 3 February 2009,because the area was still smouldering andwe know that in the video the area wasn’t!Then there are the numerous dead leaveslittering the ground seen in the Koaladrinking video. The number is substantial(noting the charred ground was stripped ofall leaves when burnt), meaning that theleaves must have been put on the groundas a result of strong wind stripping thetrees and some days after the ground hadcooled sufficiently so as not to ignite thefalling leaves.In the week preceding 7 February 2009,there was very little wind of any sort,except on 7 Feb, when they were verystrong.That sets a minimum first possible date formaking the Koala drink video, which is wellpost-dating the Noonan drinking Koalaimages (Lance the Koala).However from the vegetation in the videoand it’s stability and non-movement, it isevident that the video must have beencreated after the wind dropped on 7February 2009, that is after 5 PM on 7February 2009.More importantly is the smoke haze asmentioned earlier.In the week preceding and including 7February, the prevailing wind was anortherly. That is, the fire burnt in a northto south direction and the smoke went thesame way (ahead of the fire front).This direction of travel reversed only after

the cold change on the evening of 7February 2009, which would have been thefirst time that smoke would have beenpresent in burnt areas that werethemselves no longer smouldering.Hence there is no doubt that the video wascreated at some stage after 5 PM on 7February 2009, and most likely some daysafter!For even more convincing proof of thetiming of the Tree Koala drinking video andthe date it was produced, the CFAthemselves have produced evidenceputting a date at or beyond 7 February2009.At:http://www.cfaconnect.net.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=28:mirboo-north-and-strzelecki-highway-29-and-30-january-2009&Itemid=42.are a series of photos of the area thatDavid Tree himself placed his male Koalato give it a drink.These are according to the site taken on orabout 29 and 30 January 2009. The first ofthe four images is that which includes theexact tree that Tree used in his own laterproduction, (it being the first tree on the leftside of the photo).Contrary to the Tree Koala images, herewe have ground that is bare of any fallenleaves (all having been incinerated), withthe ground still smouldering and obviouslystill hot enough to ignite any other leavesthat fell to the ground.The smoke haze in this image is clearlygenerated on site and behind the mainadvancing fire front, whose smoke clearlyblows elsewhere (south).The key element of course is that based onthe condition of the very same site on 29/30 January 2009, it wouldn’t have beenpossible for Tree’s images to have beenmade for at least a week!



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Above: CFA Photo of location of Koala photos from CFA website, allegedly takenon 29 or 30 January 2009, showing smouldering ground and wood, but no leaveson the ground. Below: The famous photo of David Tree and the male “Sam theKoala” at the same location, showing no smouldering ground or vegetation, plantregeneration and also numerous new and scattered dead leaves on the ground,indicating at least a week had elapsed between when the photos had been taken.



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MONEY, MONEY, MONEYThe real reason for the active promotion of“Sam the Koala”, (both Koalas includedhere), was to further the interests of thosethat promoted the concept.This usually meant money in one form orother.Yes, people have been selling stuffedKoala toys for decades and this wholecaper was a modification of the idea.For Wood, the original supplier of thedrinking Koala and home for both male andfemale “Sams”, it gave her animal shelterbusiness an enormous publicity boost,which she traded on heavily to get anavalanche of donations from the public.Her stated target was $700,00 which isgreater sum than most people could savein a lifetime!Tree used the concept to boost his careeras the next “Steve Irwin” to promote hisown fame and fortune.To that end, he threw in his job as a schoolbus driver and travelled widely promotinghimself. The lawyers used it to theircommercial advantage, the government ofthe day headed by John Brumby keenlyassociated himself with the Koala as partof the game of avoiding blame for hisgovernment’s role in creating the bushfiredisaster that he’d been warned about andso he actively promoted the stuffed Koalaat the Museum.The CFA, animal welfare shelters andsimilar groups used the concept to raisemoney for themselves, Martinek to sellchocolates to raise money for ex diggers,the DSE to promote their (alleged) role inprotecting wildlife and to shift blame fromtheir own ineptitude prior to the bushfires.The Herald-Sun newspaper used “Sam theKoala” to raise money for CFA volunteersand presumably to boost their own salesas well.While none of this seems particularlywrong on the surface, or implicates many

involved with wrongdoing, issues arisewhen money is scammed out of people onthe basis of false pretexts or fraud,possibly in contravention of charitycollection laws and more importantly whenother potentially more worthy charities missout on donations as a result of moneybeing diverted to “Sam the Koala”associated groups.Regardless of claims by protagonists interms of who invented “Sam the Koala”,the “Sam the Koala” subject here wasinvented with the production of the firstvideo of David Tree giving the male Koalaa drink of water.While (according to Beamish’s statutorydeclaration) the Koala was officially named“Sam” on or about 6 February, this waslater backdated by common consent toinclude the (allegedly) same Koala filmedallegedly on 1 February, as in the maledrinking Koala, which we now know to be aseparate animal.Certainly there is nothing on the publicrecord to connect this particular “Sam theKoala” to anything predating February2009, although based on material fromTree, his author friend, and what we knowabout the pre-planning of the event interms of setting up the Koala and video,they’d apparently had the idea made upsome time prior to the film being made.Whether the time frame in terms ofplanning the video, was minutes, days orhours, is uncertain, but based on a 60-90minute drive time from Wood’s residence(The Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter) andthe forest where the incident was allegedlyfilmed (and noting the smoke in the video alikely venue), there was some time frameinvolved in the prior planning of the event.The history of things post video is easy toascertain based on public records and thelike.Woods had only recently commencedestablishing her “Southern Ash Wildlife



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Screen dumps ofwebpages as they appearwhen downloaded, show-ing the main objectivebehind “Sam the Koala”is to raise money.



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Shelter”, as evidenced by the minimalevidence of her activities prior to BlackSaturday.She had no website at the time or for thatmatter little else in terms of media or othertrail.At an uncertain date between January andApril 2009 she set up an internet domain“samthekoala.com.au” registered with Austdomains and hosted at http://www.syra.net.au/ as her shelter’s websiteand using SEO (search engineoptimisation) ensured it topped mostinternet searches (like “Google”) for theterm/s “Sam the koala”.The site has minimal content (just sevenweb pages, including a gallery with photos)and is clearly designed as a funnel tosolicit donations to her “shelter”, with eachpage seeking donations, many pagesdoing so repeatedly.Interestingly she only acquired an ABNfrom 30 April 2009 and set herself up ascharitable DGR (Deductible gift recipient)on 15 December 2009, which is interestingas she’d been actively soliciting donationsof up to $500 a pop via her website forseveral months by that stage.The legality of the way she was solicitingfunds was beyond the scope of this article,but became relevant as investigationscontinued.I must question the ethics of using animpostor female Koala to solicit funds onbehalf of an allegedly burnt male koala thatwas filmed drinking bottled water, andclaimed in the first instance (in totality bydate priority) as “Sam the Koala”.Noting that she had owned this Koala asfar back as 2006, the dishonesty of thewhole act must be treated seriously,especially as it is now being touted asVictorian Natural History.Wood was not alone in jumping on the“Sam the Koala” bandwagon. The Herald-Sun allegedly made several hundred

thousand dollars selling (the male) “Samthe Koala” prints, at that stage (allegedly)photographed by photographer (RussellVickery), all or most of the profits of whichwas donated to the CFA.Numerous other “Sam the Koala” websitesalso emerged and/or were registered.Many wildlife shelters and animalorganizations, promoted their (alleged)associations with the now famous Koala(the assumption being there was only onesuch animal), while there were also anumber of other “Sam the Koala” domainsregistered for the express purpose ofsoliciting donations for various causes.Included were: www.koalasam.comregistered by EM Harris of, PO Box 1581Sale, Victoria 3850, Australia, hosted byhttp://www.jumba.net.au/ using it as thewebsite for his group that he called:Wildlife Rescue and Protection (WRAP)and like Wood’s site making claims ofbeing in charge of “Sam the Koala” andseeking donations.Included on the front page was thestatement “Sam is recovering at WildlifeRescue & Protection”, which seemedstrange as everyone else thought Woodhad the animal.Similar to Wood’s site this was a minimalsite (just six web pages) and all activelyseeking money (donations).Wood is also heavily involved with WRAPso the similarity in their money raisingmethods is probably no coincidence.Harris had also been quick off the mark,registering the domain on 11 February2009, just one day after the drinking Koalafirst hit the news media.A cybersquatter in the USA took http://www.samthekoala.com/ on 11 February aswell, that site being effectively “parked” andnot being used to scam donations as ofJanuary 2010.Evidently Sam the Koala became a bigger



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The print trail is harder to alter than the digital trail.While David Tree, Colleen Wood, the DSE and others have apparently changed theiralleged “Sam the Koala” stories to counter claims of priority, copyright ownership interms of the now famous images, later trademarks litigation and the like, the print trail isharder to alter than the digital one. Herald-Sun websites carrying relevant news storiesfrom February 2009 have been altered and had material both removed or added,without any indication of such on the webpages. However the original print copies withinlibraries remain unchanged and are therefore an accurate record of the “Sam the Koala”fraud as it was recalled by the media in February 2009. The hard copy of the news storyabove even has photos of two different Koalas (shown) on the same page and yetidentified erroneously as the same, one and only “Sam”.

Inserts: thehard copy section

relating to the creation of thefamous Koala drinking image from the

news clip at top and then a section of theequivalent webpage, hosted at:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/sam-the-koala-a-video-star/story-0-1111118815621

showing the Vickery reference removed and an added claim that Pardew was theactual photographer. The web page carried no statement of the changes or datereference of the changes either.



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money spinner than most promotersenvisaged and according to media reportsthe lawyers became involved in Februaryto deal with the interest in the Koala and tofurther drum up business.What hasn’t been determined conclusivelyby my own enquiries is whether or not thelawyers had anything to do with the Koalaswap (male to female), if they knew aboutit at any stage and/or if they becameinvolved for the purposes of hiding the(now) obvious fact a swap and fraud hasbeen conducted in terms of both swappingthe Koala and the obvious staging of whatwas dishonestly promoted as anunplanned event.At the time of first compiling this article, theonly other person I knew who had becomeaware of the Koala swap was Martinek(she predated myself). However we werenot the first to suspect this.In a post on the Courier Mail website was apost stating much the same.At: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25042119-953,00.html wasthe post:

“Maybe I am wrong but the koala inthe wildlife shelter looks differentfrom the koala in the forest. In thewildlfe shelter, she looks youngerand smaller. In the forest, the koalahas a big head, as big as thefirefighter. But in the wildlife shelter,the koala’s head seems small.Posted by: Gillian of Cairns 3:10pmFebruary 12, 2009”.

OTHER INFRACTIONS … ILLEGALFUNDRAISINGThat Wood was fundraising using the “Samthe Koala” concept was obvious and couldnot be denied. That she wasmasquerading as a charitable organisationwas not in dispute. For example in thenewsclip at:http://au.legalbusinessonline.com/site-search/sam-the-koala-brings-media-work-

to-tresscox-partner/34303 published on 13March 2009, correspondent, RichardSzabo wrote,

“Sam the koala (picture by RussellVickery) is cute and cuddly -and getting sympathy from aroundthe world, as one of theanimals displaced by the recentsevere bushfires in Victoria. Sheis also keeping Tresscox partner NicPullen very busy.Working on a pro bono basis sincemid-February, Pullen hashelped handle fundraising for theSouthern Ash Animal Centre,the refuge overseeing Sam’srehabilitation.”

At no stage did Pullen publicly deny hisfundraising role, so we can safely assumethe reports (only one of many quoted here)were correct.I therefore made inquiries as to the rulesand regulations governing fundraising tosee if she was doing it legally, or was inbreach of some law.Put another way, if I started a websiteseeking donations to the “Raymond Hoserhome building fund”, I’d be jailed!It turns out that there are quite specificlaws in terms of fundraising in Victoria.On 11 February 2009, Consumer AffairsMinister Tony Robinson, issued a pressrelease warning about bogus fundraisersand the need for all to be registered withConsumer Affairs Victoria (CAV).In summary you must be a registeredfundraiser BEFORE you commencefundraising.The only exemption applicable to Woodand her shelter is that if you seek to raise atotal of less than $10,000 you may nothave to register, if your activity falls within ahost of other potential exemptionguidelines.



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However, on her website created sometimebetween January and April 2009, Woodstated she was seeking $700,000 forbuilding at her property.CAV also has a register of registeredfundraisers and a check of this databaseonline at:http://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/cbav/fundrais.nsf/SearchWeb?OpenFormshowed that the Southern Ash WildlifeShelter was registered as a fundraiser on28 August 2009 (number: 10484), withJennifer Lynn McNally listed as the contact.Noting that money was being raised beforethat date (and that it takes a maximum of28 days to register after application), theonly conclusion to be drawn is that Woodand her shelter were illegally fundraisingbefore that date (Feb 2009 to Aug 2009).An obvious question then arises is whetheror not the lawyers acting for Wood and theshelter knew that this fundraising wasillegal.Noting that TressCox were authorizingothers to raise money on their behalf inFebruary, it seems odd that they wouldallow this illegal activity to go on.See for example the letter from PeitaElkhorne of TressCox Lawyers dated 24February 2009Posted at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ACEO-PRINT-Sam-The-Koala-bear-4-Shelter-Hospital-CT_W0QQitemZ170429751766QQcmdZViewItemQQptZArt_Prints?hash=item27ae67a1d6(text above is typed as a continuous line).Hence the only alternative conclusions arethat either they failed to ask Wood and theshelter if they were registered asfundraisers, or if they did ask, then theywere lied to by their clients.None of the three possible explanationslook good!

WHO MADE HOW MUCH?Getting anything resembling a straightanswer is almost impossible.The public record reveals little.Photo credits for the same photos varies.It first appeared Mirboo North CFAfirefighter Russell Vickery owned copyrightto the still images and Tree himself thevideo.That was the “official” story for about sixmonths after the event.Somehow the ownership of the still imagestransferred to Pardew and then the DSE,who in particular sought to take credit forthe images and promote their corporateimage as a diversion from their culpabilityfor their role in the creation of the firedisaster in the first place.Whether the Herald-Sun and other mediaoutlets actually paid for the images andhow much, and to whom isn’t known andthese are questions definitely worthy ofbeing answered.The same applies to the images andrelated material sold on to Reuters.It didn’t take long to lose count of howmany times the Herald-Sun in particularused the original images of Tree feedingthe male Koala the well (productplacement) placed bottle of “H2O mineralwater”, including for example a two-pagecenter spread in the Herald-Sun onSunday 7 February 2010. The quality ofthose images is good and easily identifiesthe Koala as the male “Bob” and not thefemale Sam, whose images were allegedlysold by Wood for a tidy sum, according toTree.In terms of access to Wood and her twoKoalas, it seems only the Herald-Sun weregranted access, as far as the mainstreamprint media were concerned.I didn’t investigate which, if any of the TVnetworks also had access.Photos on the Herald-Sun website of the



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relevant Koalas show numerous photoswith varying credits, but if the accuracy ofthe Vickery/Pardew image credits isanything to go by, all the Herald-Suncredits must be treated with suspicion interms of accuracy.THE MASONIC CONNECTIONIn the light of the sequence of eventsinvolving Tree, Wood and the others, it’dbe evident that Tree and Wood wouldprefer to hide any connections they hadpredating the ostensibly chance encounterwith the drinking Koala (that we now knowto be “Bob” from the Wood shelter) andtheir roles in getting the said Koala to thesite to filmed.However it turns out that Wood and Treehave a strong Freemason connection thatis generally unknown.Bro (Brother) David Tree is a member oflodge number 186, while Wood’s husband,Bro John Wood is an Inner Guard at thenearby Lodge number 69, whichincidentally actively raised funds for theWood’s shelter.According to the Autumn 2009Freemason’s newsletter, posted on theweb at:http://www.freemasonsvic.net.au/Portals/0/newsletter_pdf/FmV_119.pdf, Freemason’sVictoria also donated another $5,000 toWood and her SAWS, notably at a timethat she wasn’t registered as a “fundraiser”.This was on top of other fundraising byWood identified in the same newsletter.WILDLIFE SHELTER RULESWood and her shelter had a wildlife shelterpermit.These are issued by the DSE and asregulating authority, DSE have immensepowers, including to literally close down ashelter at their whim.As a result, there is a fear of DSE andgeneral desire by license holders to put upwith unreasonable directions simply to

keep the peace.As a reptile exhibitor licensed by the sameDSE, I find myself in the same positionoften, silently complying with totallyridiculous rules and regulations simply tokeep the peace.Wildlife shelters such as Wood do haverules and regulations and the importantones are as follows.Animals arriving at their shelters must berehabilitated and then released into thewild.They must not be kept as pets. Animalsunable to be released into the wild whenhealthy must be killed (euthanazed).None are allowed to be kept as pets.There are different licences and rules andregulations for this.Because there are no time limits onrehabilitation, some shelter owners rort thesystem and keep animals for years as“pets” without releasing them.For Koalas, this scam is particularlypopular as the regulations for keepingKoalas on other licences are quiteonerous.Keeping licences for Koalas involve theneed to have at least two guaranteedstocks of trees and leaves (on land youcontrol or own) for the marsupials, thesecond stock being in case one lot burnsdown.Wildlife shelters can bypass this rule asthey cannot control what gets handed in.They can literally beg and borrow leavesfrom almost anywhere as the need arises.Hence Koalas are always popular in wildlifeshelters.A question that arises is why did Woodappear to retain an apparently healthyKoala for three years?We are of course talking about the drinking“Bob” the Koala.If she didn’t, then how is it she got thesame animal twice? And why did she lie



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about it being burnt?In terms of the public display of the two“Sams” the authorization Wood held hastwo other important conditions.These are:16. The Authorisation holder shall not

allow any access by the generalpublic to the Wildlife Shelter. Shelteroperations, including wildlife held inshelter, must be kept out of publicview at all times.

17. The holder of the Wildlife ShelterAuthorisation shall not sell, give, lend,hire or publicly display any wildlifereceived for care at theshelter without the prior writtenapproval of the Wildlife Officer.

For the purposes of the present and untilthere is evidence to the contrary, one mustassume that Wood did not haveauthorisation to show media the saidKoalas.More importantly, Wood did not haveauthorisation to allow David Tree to befilmed giving her “Bob” the Koala a drink.The assumption preceding is made basedon my own informal discussions with DSEcompliance staff and other shelter owners,all of whom state that it’s effectivelyimpossible to get DSE approval to showthe public (including the media) animals intheir care for any purposes.I am now also aware of several wildlifeshelters who sought DSE approval toshow media injured animals, includingKoalas at the time of the 2009 bushfiresand who were refused.If on the other hand DSE did approve ofthe Tree Koala drinking event prior to it’soccurrence, this immediately implicatesthem in the Koala swap fraud and all thatfollowed.SAM THE KOALA TRADEMARKSOn 20 February 2009, retired Army MajorMaryann Martinek applied to register the

first of a number of “Sam the Koala” andsimilar trademarks with the Australianregistrar, IP Australia.These trademarks were approved by theregistrar and commenced the process ofregistration. In essence the trademarksare “advertised” and for a period of threemonths, interested objectors can lodge an“opposition” to the trademark.If no opposition is received the trademarkis automatically registered, with thecurrency of registration being backdated tothe date of application, meaning thatMartinek’s claim to the first of hertrademarks dates to 20 February 2009.Most trademarks applied for that meet IPAustralia guidelines are registered withoutobjection, for several reasons includingthat potential objectors generally don’tcheck the trademarks registrar’s databasefor potentially objectionable trademarksand even if they do, few people want tospend time and money objecting when theresult may not be favorable.Strategically and based on my own pastexperience and that of Martinek (both ofwhom have registered trademarks andboth of whom have separately beatenobjections to do so), it is best not to tellpeople of pending trademarks (thoseapplied for and not yet registered) as to doso may tip-off potential objectors to thetrademarks.Once registered, trademarks are difficult orexpensive for objectors to deregister orovercome, the usual means being throughFederal Court proceedings. Trademarksare a powerful business tool as they givethe owner “exclusive use” over thetrademark throughout Australia.In mid 2009, Woods entity the “SouthernAsh Wildlife Shelter”, now using theacronym “SAWS” tried to assert ownershiprights of the money stream from “Sam theKoala” and Wood and/or helperscommenced trying to stop others using



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“Sam the Koala” for commercialenterprises. She contacted Martinek andasked her to stop a “Twitter” page she hadcreated, with Martinek advising Wood thatshe had no right to do so as she (Martinek)had the trademark.SAWS referred the matter to Wood’slawyers, who apparently didn’t act on it, butthe same information fell into the hands ofHerald Sun newspaper journalists, AmeliaHarris, Megan McNaught and Ben Butlerwho between them produced a pair ofstories detailing the same on 11 and 12August 2009.Butler sought DSE’s views via their mediaoffice and as a result, DSE filed a Notice ofOpposition and later filed Evidence inSupport of their Opposition on 15December 2009. The DSE and Martinekare now engaged in a standard oppositionprocess. The Trademark Office acceptedMartinek’s trademarks for registration andthey were assessed as meeting therequirements of the Trademarks Act. Anopposition process permits third parties toobject but they must state their reasons inwriting and this is considered by theTrademark Office. As of end January 2010,that remains the state of play.DSE have served four statutorydeclarations on Martinek, these beingsigned by David Tree, Michael Beamish,Sarah Haines (DSE) and Brigid Ann Wing(DSE), all passed to me in January 2010.There’s a period of legal “argy-bary” anddocument exchange before the actual IPAustralia objection hearing/s that may bemonths or even years away.This also assumes that the proceedingsare not discontinued by the objectors asalso often happens.Notwithstanding this, the websiteWikepedia reported on 20 January 2009the following:“On 20 February 2009, a former armymajor, Mary-Ann Martinek, applied to use

the words “Sam the Koala” as a trademarkand in March 2009 submitted anapplication to use the iconic image of Samreceiving water in order to sell chocolateswith the image on them. [18] TheDepartment of Sustainability andEnvironment filed a claim in opposition andlater succeeded.[19]”

The references cited did not state whatWikipedia did. In fact the referencescorrectly noted that the process ofopposition was ongoing and far fromfinalized.Clearly the editor of the web page waskeen to spread misinformation aboutMartinek.The rest of the web page at Wikipediarehashes the “official” version of events,including no references to the swappingKoalas shortly after the making of the koaladrinking from water bottle sequence.Interestingly Martinek seeks to register anobviously male “Sam the Koala” in hercomposite image trademarks, while theanimal in the Museum of Victoria isundeniably a female.Ironically it was our discussions in relationto the trademark matters that led to thewider investigation of the “Sam the Koala”Koala swap and associated issues.WHO KNOWS OF THE KOALA SWAP?The images are self explanatory. Havingsaid that, they are no substitute for theanimals themselves and it is obvious thatthe two “Sams” are quite different in size,shape and colour.David Tree claims knowledge of animalsand based on his own statements hasexperience with Koalas spanning someyears as does Wood.Noting that Wood held Bob (the originalSam) and the newer female Sam at thesame time and place, it seems improbableif not impossible that either of those twowould be unaware of the swap.This is especially so noting that a female



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newspaper reader in Cairns was able tospot the difference on 12 February 2009and based on casual perusal of poorquality images on the web.Furthermore, even from a poor qualityYoutube video it is clear that the original“Sam”, is a male, from the shape of thehead, nose shape and scent gland.Tree himself accurately identifies the Koalaas a male in the video, indicating sufficientexpertise to be able to tell the difference.But in the later (at the shelter images of 13Feb or thereabouts), he is seen peering atthe (now) female Sam with the captionstating he has reunited with her (as in thisis the same Koala recognizing him as theman who gave him (now her) bottled waterin the forest).Nobody has claimed Tree is a total idiotand it would be ridiculous to believe that hecould not tell the difference between alarge male and a far smaller female Koalaof totally different appearance just daysbetween viewing them.The statutory declaration of Beamish isworded in a manner that allows for theswap. To Martinek, Beamish said hethought that the female Sam was not thedrinking male Koala. One hopes more willemerge from Beamish if he’s called to giveevidence at a trademark hearing.As for other people potentially aware of theswap, there are no highly likely suspects,although first in line would be other peopleworking with Wood at her residence aslisted on her web page, closely followed byher two acting lawyers.Having said this, anyone who had takentime to study the relevant animals and/orimages would soon become aware of theKoala swap and the question then arisesas to who in fact has known of it and keptquiet.The nature of the reporting of the drinking(male) “Sam the Koala”, including thedeliberate non-reporting of the Noonan

“Lance the Koala” (evidently known tonews limited and other Melbourne-basedjournalists, with ready access to andreadership of interstate news media),indicates a firm desire to paint “Sam” asthe original bottle of water-drinking Koala.While there was some circumstantialevidence to suggest one or more Herald-Sun staff were behind the pre-plannedfilming of Tree and the male Koala(especially if one of their staff actually tookthe still images), there is still no evidenceto implicate them in the swap or to haveknowledge of it.The same applies in the case of DSE (inFebruary 2009) and Pardew in particular.THE ADMISSIONSAs part of her preparation to defend hertrademark applications, Martinek phonedand spoke with David Tree, his wife,Colleen Wood, another person at theSAWS and Michael Beamish.I have heard copies of tapes of theconversations for the purposes ofverification, but removed them from myproperty.In the conversations, all admittedknowledge of the Koala swap and all alsowent further and stated that people at DSE,their lawyers, the lawyers acting for Samthe Koala and relevant people at theHerald-Sun were all aware of the Koalaswap and that they all knew that the stuffedfemale at the Museum was not the maledrinking Koala.More significantly and without prompting,Wood stated that she had been “dobbedin” for illegally fundraising and that theauthorities threatened to jail her unless shedid what they asked her to.To that end she has had to do thefollowing:Maintain the lie that the female Koala wasthe drinking koala and in spite of herobjections, surrender the female Koala to



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the DSE and the Museum of Victoria to bestuffed and put on exhibit.Most significantly, Tree and Wood bothstated that DSE and their lawyers wereaware of the Koala swap and that in orderto avoid prosecution for various wildlife andother offences (including those related tofundraising), all image and related rights tothe koala had to be ceded to the DSE.This ceding of rights to the Koala to theDSE and the use of the Koala for self-promotion by the DSE is of course now thecenter of the trademark dispute involvingMartinek.Of perhaps greater interest to the tabloidmedia is that according to Wood, VictorianState Premier John Brumby was aware ofthe Koala swap but in spite of this hadinsisted that the stuffed body be promotedat the Museum with himself prominentlylinked to it.Media reports of December 2009 andJanuary 2010 have confirmed the latter,but not the former.Unfortunately, I cannot state that thecomments by Tree, Wood and the othersare correct as I can state that they havelied about the Koalas in the first instance.However it’d be nice if these allegationswere properly investigated.In terms of inferences based on facts, I cansay it is highly unlikely that any of thenamed individuals above would beunaware of the Koala swap, with thepossible exception of Brumby, assuminghis involvement in the caper was bothminimal and that his minders did thelegwork for him.Tree and his wife stated that the originalphotos was taken by Pardew, but emailedto the media by Russell Vickery and thatthe confusion in terms of the photographerhad been maintained for some months.Both Tree and Wood stated that they hadmade money selling images of the relevant

Koalas.Wood justified the lies on the basis itraised money for her shelter to saveKoalas.Tree likewise justified his lies on the basisthat it aided wildlife conservation.PRE-PLANNING THE “SAM THEKOALA” EVENTThat it was preplanned cannot be disputed.The evidence is overwhelming andundeniable.By the time the story hit the media on orabout 10 February, the decision hadalready been made to “plant” and film themale “Sam” and to use the female “Sam”as the future “star”.Speculation included that the male Koala,was in fact a “pet”, explaining his behaviorand lack of injuries, but that remainedspeculation until the image of the sameKoala three years earlier was located byMartinek.When Tree and Wood decided to take themale Koala and film it drinking is alsounknown, but evidence suggests that the 6February date is close to the mark.This immediately post-dates the Noonan“Lance the Koala” images and based onthe rapid cross-posting on the web by Tree,Wood and agents, it’d be impossible toexpect them to have missed such an eventwhen it occurred.Another important pointer to the 6 Februarydate is the statutory declaration byBeamish dated 10 December 2009.Drafted by the DSE for the Trademark legalproceedings, I automatically have doubtsas to the truthfulness of the declaration.This does not necessarily reflect onBeamish in particular, but rather on theconduct of the DSE lawyers in suchmatters.In a VCAT matter I had against DSE at end2008, DSE lawyers threatened a friend ofmine Robin Zelesco, and used illegal



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threats to make him change evidence inrelation to the fact that surgicallydevenomized venomous snakes are totallysafe, to change his alleged professionalview as a licenced veterinary surgeon thatthe snakes regenerated venom and weredangerous.In the VCAT hearing that was taped andtranscribed, Zelesco took the brave moveand stated that DSE people had madethreats to him to get him to sign a statutorydeclaration they had drafted that he did notagree with.All witnesses to those proceedings whohad statutory declarations prepared byDSE, said that they had been drafted bythe DSE’s lawyers and then they had beenasked to sign them.One can only presume that the DSE’slawyers have acted in a similar way for theMartinek matter.That is in that the DSE lawyers drafteddeclarations and then asked thesignatories to check the “facts” and if theyagreed with them to sign.In terms of the Beamish document, itprobably correlated with his recollection ofevents and he signed the document.Important is that he may not haverecognized the dates or had accuraterecollection of them.However assuming the entire document istrue and correct does give some veryimportant and relevant evidence.Beamish stated that his wife was spoken toTree’s wife and that:“On 6 February 2009 I visited the areawhere Mr Tree indicated his encounter witha koala had taken place and came acrosswhat I believed to be the koala inquestion.”The lack of a definite “The was the samebottle drinking Koala” statement indicates areluctance by Beamish to put his name tosuch a claim and that he knew there had

been a Koala swap.(He later confirmed that to Martinek).Alternatively, it is reasonable to infer thatthe DSE lawyers knew of the swap (a likelyoutcome as the case revolves aroundphotos of the male and female “Sam theKoalas”) and themselves saw the danger ina strong easily disproven connection.More important however is the 6 Februarydate as this alone puts a time date on thefirst pre-planning of the “Sam the Koala”event.It becomes somewhat speculative as towhat happened in terms of the actual linksbetween Tree, Beamish and how thisalleged female Koala caught by Beamishended up in a wildlife shelter some 90minutes drive from the fires at ColleenWood’s place.But based on what’s easily determined(without doubt) in terms of the making ofthe “Sam the Koala” video and originalimages, it appears that Tree knew that theBeamish Koala would in all probability endup at Wood’s shelter, although this cannotbe stated as a matter of fact.What can be said based on the publicrecord is that 6 February 2009 is the firstknown creation date for the “Sam theKoala” “legend” in terms of planning to filmthe drinking Koala and this post-datesNoonan’s “Lance the Koala”.HOW MANY KOALAS DID “SOUTHERNASH WILDLIFE SHELTER” HAVE AS OF10 FEBRUARY 2009?The relevance of the question arises interms of the photos depicted as taken by amedia photographer or several, who thenhad their pictures posted on the web andelsewhere on or about 13 February 2009,including at: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/gallery-0-1111120749856?page=7(photo by Stephen Harman, or at leastcredited to him).These are the images depicting Sam andBob, Bob being the original drinking Koala



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and Sam (the female version 2) with Tree.Looking at the photos on the web I haddifficulty identifying given Koalas in allphotos, however with little effort I was ableto see that “Bob” was one and the same asthe original water-drinking “Sam”.In terms of the original photos posted, onlytwo readily identifiable Koalas aredepicted, namely Sam (version 2) and Bob(Sam version 1).Noting that a Koala swap has taken placeand a fraud has been attempted, it seemsalmost reckless to have mediaphotographers being let loose with thesame (Sam version one) Koala, with theresulting images potentially putting theKoala swap caper at risk of exposure.The first obvious reason for such a risk tobe taken is that at the time, Wood only hadtwo Koalas at her house. However basedon the earlier 3 February 2009 report byMacNaught, we know that Wood hadaccess to other Koalas and so theexplanation had to be discounted.Hence as the next most likely explanation itappears that Sam and Bob were bothcarefully chosen for their promotional roles.Bob it seems was chosen because of hisability to do tricks including drinking from abottle and also for his obvious tameness.Sam, it seems was chosen for similarreasons, the most important one being herage and the then stated hope that she’dhave a baby.As I am not a mind-reader, I cannot statethe exact plans for the female “Sam” theKoala.However there are pointers.The lawyers expressed a desire for Sam tohave a baby.This indicated an aim to keep the Koala aslong as possible and perhaps never torelease it into the wild.By way of precedent, the celebrity Koalawho survived the Canberra bushfires

ended up dying of old age in captivity someyears later.Then there’s the fictional children’s booktitled:“Koala Sam : an Australian story of loveand survival”, written by Heather Freeman ;illustrated by Peter Townsend, being sold inearly 2010 to raise money for SAWS.As for how much money got raised, thereare conflicting results. The Herald-Sunstated they had 40 people working to takedonations for their “Sam the Koala” appealraising $300,000 within weeks.According to the phone conversations withMartinek, Mirboo North residents, Tree andVickery apparently sought money forrenovations, while Wood had a target of$700,000 for buildings to add to herproperty.How close they actually got isn’t known,but based on other conversations withWood, it appears a sizeable amount ofmoney was raised through the whole Samthe Koala scam.INCOMPETANCE AT THE MUSEUM OFVICTORIAIn terms of the Museum of Victoria andtheir staff, it appears that they haveaccepted all that’s been given to them fromoutside sources on face value and failed tocross-check the images of Tree and thedrinking Koala with the specimen in thebox next to their signage.As of January 2010, the stuffed femaleKoala sat in a glass case replete with brightpink (as opposed to dull pink in real life)bandages on her feet. More importantly isan adjacent vertical sign, giving informationabout “Sam the Koala” including the (nowattributed to Pardow and the Department ofSustainability and Environment) image ofDavid Tree offering the male Koala a drink.It is therefore obvious from standing in thefoyer of the Museum, that the “Sam theKoala” in the case is an imposter!Yes, you can simply line up the image on



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the plaque with the animal in the glasscase and see they don’t match!More damaging evidence is that on theopposite side of the glass case is a videoscreen playing replays of video of Treegiving the male Koala a drink.The screen is large and the quality of thevideo is far superior to that seen on theYoutube and related clips.On the Museum screen, the fact that thekoala depicted in the video is male isinescapable. Furthermore the video is soclear that it is particularly easy to line upkey features of the Koala with the known(later) photos of “Bob” (The male) taken atWood’s place around the same period(February 2009) to establish that thedrinking Koala and the male “Bob” are oneand the same.The Museum video more clearly showssnout markings and bald patches on theforelimbs than the poorer quality “Youtube”clips.Hence, evidence of complicity in the fraudby some at the Museum is an inescapableconclusion.The alternative explanation is totalincompetence.However media reports prior to the femaleSam’s death stated that the wounds on thefeet had healed, and same was shown onWood’s own site with a photo of the femaleSam the Koala and the healed feet dated 5August 2009.Therefore there was no need to putbandages on the feet, unless of course itwas part of the marketing ploy surroundingthe fraud.Then there’s the obvious differencesbetween the male shown drinking and thefemale on display.According to Wood and Tree, key staff atthe museum are aware of the fraud.Who those alleged staff are were notidentified and hence any investigation inthis direction was stalled.

THE STATE GOVERNMENT OFVICTORIAAn obvious question to be asked is themotive of myself (Raymond Hoser) topublish a detailed exposure of a fraudinvolving a pair of Koalas in Victoria.People will speculate and an obviousconclusion may be that I am acting forMartinek in some way as that is the onlyobvious connection I have.This is not the case. Frankly I have nointerest in her trademarks or her chocolatebusiness and would humbly prefer she tryselling “Death Adder Chocolates”, or if shewants to go big then “Broghammeruschocolates”!However I am seriously concerned at otheraspects of the case.The listed opponent in her case (as of 30January 2010) is not Wood, Tree, or any ofthe others involved in the creation of the“Sam the Koala” caper or who have madesums of money out of the fraud.The listed opponent is the Department ofSustainability and Environment, one of thedepartments directly culpable for the deathand destruction in terms of the February2009 bushfires.In January 2009, while doing a reptiledemonstration at the Endeavour HillsShopping mall, I was raided by two officersfrom the DSE (one brought in from as faraway as Geelong), who created a publicdisturbance and made false claims aboutpublic safety and our snakes to staff at themall and the public. The raid followed asimilar disturbance created the day prior bya newly licenced demonstrator seeking tosteal our company’s business that hadbeen established over many years.The false claims include that our surgicallydevenomized snakes have regeneratedtheir venom and are therefore dangerousand a public risk.The claims are totally false.



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Our company Snakebusters, are the onlydemonstrators in the world with surgicallydevenomized (known as venomoid)snakes.These were first produced by myself in2004 (see links at: http://www.smuggled.com/VenFAQ1.htm).The snakes are with minimal discomfortmade permanently non-venomous whichmeans that 1/ There is no public risk withour deadly snake displays and 2/ Thesnakes welfare isn’t compromised by theuse of metal hooks, sticks and tongs tohandle them.These facts have been establishedcountless times beyond any possibledispute.As a result of the totally unnecessaryharassment and disturbance by the DSEofficials the mall cancelled a pre-existingSeptember 2009 booking and booked aninexperienced rival outfit instead.The incident was relatively unusual in thatin my businesses as demonstrator andsnake catcher I deal with DSE staffextensively and generally they are polite,sensible and trouble free. Most of the timethey work cooperatively rather thanadversarial.Notable is that at the time of this (adverse)“raid” the weather was hot and there werefires still burning, with the forecast for thefollowing week to be extremely hot (which itwas).The DSE people harassing my staff, mycustomers and myself could have beenbetter deployed actually fighting fires orpreparing for the next ones!In late 2008, I had fought against DSEofficers at VCAT, the DSE again acting onbehalf of “competitors” withoutdevenomized snakes.The case revolved around what theyrepeatedly said was our unfair competitiveadvantage of having devenomized snakes,

that the others didn’t, allowing us to do risk-free deadly snake shows at malls and thelike, which was something others couldn’toffer and therefore effectively kept themout of most malls.The simple issue was that mall managersdidn’t want to take risks with dangeroussnakes in their venues when a totally safealternative (Snakebusters) was available.We argued that others could emulate usand acquire venomoids to raise theirstandards, but the DSE and the peoplethey were acting on behalf of, argued thatwe should lower our standards instead.In a case that was predetermined, DSEraised an argument they knew to be false,claiming our devenomized snakes to be aserious public threat and risk on the (false)claim that the snakes had regeneratedtheir venom glands.To prove the falseness of the claim about39 (all) of the venomoids were lined up andmade to bite me in front of a schoolassembly, TV and print news media andothers.DSE stopped the media from running thefootage.At VCAT three similar videos werepresented to the tribunal member but fromthe outset of the case it was clear shewould do whatever DSE asked for and sheruled against me.The VCAT Judge, Anne Coghlan, fullyaware that the snakes were harmless,produced a hatchet-job judgement, statingthe devenomized snakes were dangerousand public hazard and imposed variousrestrictions as result.In her judgement, she failed to mentionthat she herself had seen venomoidTaipans (world’s deadliest snakes)repeatedly biting me in numerous videoswithout ill effect on me.It was agreed fact that no one survives anyTaipan bite without anti-venom, or so it had



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been before I acquired the venomoids.Instead her judgement made the falseclaim (lie) that I, Raymond Hoser had notproduced a shred of evidence to supportthat venomoids were harmless.Other evidence Coghlan received but failedto mention in her judgement includedautopsy photos from a venomoid DeathAdder that had died from age-relateddisease three years post operation thatclearly showed no venom glandregeneration, microscopic analysis ofsaliva and other test results, all confirmingno venom gland regeneration.DSE also deep-pocketed me in that if I hadchallenged the false judgment in theSupreme Court, I would be liable for DSE’scosts if they won again and that I could notafford.Noting the general aversion of the Victorianjudiciary to the truth, it was a risk I wouldnot take (refer for example to the book theThe Hoser Files: The Fight AgainstEntrenched Official Corruption published in1994, or further in the Victoria PoliceCorruption books of 1999).To strengthen their position against mydevenomized snakes, DSE did and incontravention to their own subordinateregulations, drafted and passed new lawsoutlawing the creation of venomoids inVictoria, immediately placing my businessat a disadvantage over interstatecompetitors who by 2008 were rushinghead-over-heels to acquire venomoids andalso to create an increased risk of fatalsnakebites among handlers in Victoria asdevenomized snakes are replaced bydangerous snakes that can no longer belegally rendered harmless.At a later date a more detailed papercovering the lies and deception in terms ofthe venomoid snakes will be published,due to the immense public benefit in thetruth being known about these snakes andthe dishonest campaigns waged against

myself and these snakes.Also at end 2008 and predating the finalVCAT hearing, I correctly anticipated theoutcome and lodged a detailed submissionto the Victorian Competition and EfficiencyCommission (VCEC) as part of a newlylaunched “Inquiry into EnvironmentalRegulation in Victoria”My submission was the first received bythe Commission’s inquiry and it detailedthe case involving DSE and went on tostate how it was an unnecessary diversionaway from important activities the DSE wasfailing to address including genuine safetyissues involving inexperienced venomoussnake handlers mishandling snakes andgiving wrong information, and the seriousfailure to address the bushfire threat.The VCEC converted my submission to apdf file and it sat on their website, at firstalone and later with other submissionsfrom interested parties as they werereceived.Shortly after the bushfire event of 7February 2009, the VCEC revisited mysubmission noting that it effectivelyforewarned of disasters arising from DSE’smismanagement and as part of thededicated Victorian government blameavoidance campaign post 7 February 2009,they removed my submission from theirsite, but left all others intact.This was just one of many actions Ibecame aware of conducted by theVictorian State Government andassociated entities to hide blame for thebushfire event.If the female “Sam the Koala” is to be usedas a symbol of the bushfires as DSE andothers seek, it should also be held up as asymbol of the lies, frauds, deceptions andblame hiding arising before, during andafter the fires involving senior bureaucratsand government MP’s.“Sam the Koala” as held up at present inthe Museum of Victoria is a fraud and an



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imposter in the same way as many of thegovernment’s other actions in relation tobushfires, prevention of them and also theirblame hiding post Black Saturday.In terms of VCAT and the courts, it is worthnoting that in the previous six years, I hadtried unsuccessfully through ManninghamCouncil to remove dangerous feral pinetrees (Pinus radiata) from my property atPark Orchards.These trees are a non-native invasiveweed and an extreme fire hazard. In spiteof three separate reports identifying thosevery trees on our property as a fire hazard,Manningham council and the governmentpuppet, VCAT refused to allow the removalof the trees.Other residents in my suburb of ParkOrchards who removed dead and dyingpine trees were prosecuted and finedheavily in the courts, while most of the restwere simply told not to dare trying toremove the Pines. Park Orchards is

covered in these weeds as before it wassubdivided, the area was a failed pineplantation.The general and specific deterrent effectsof this policy by councils and the stategovernment created a situation wherepeople were fearful of clearing theirproperties for fear of prosecution andcriminalisation for protecting their families.On the day of Black Saturday, a large pinetree fell down across Park Road, Donvale,blocking the main access road out of thesuburb Park Orchards. Had the windchange not happened at about 5.30 thatday (at Park Orchards), the suburb wouldhave been engulfed in flames within 2hours.Manningham council had been aware thatthe tree was a danger for some time andhad refused to deal with the problem,threatening to prosecute the land owners.As far back as 2007, a spokesman forTimber Industries Victoria, Scott Gentle,

Black Saturday disaster…The hot weather brought snakeslike these into houses, but contraryto what is claimed by many, thereal risk posed is tiny. Meanwhilethis giant Pine Tree fell andblocked the access road to ParkOrchards (Park Road) at 5 PM onBlack Saturday, and had it notbeen for a fortunate wind change30 minutes later, many hundredsmore people could have died fromflames in Warandyte/ParkOrchards. News media bowed toManningham Council demands notto print this photo showing thefallen tree council had known wasa danger for several years.Photo taken on 7 February 2009 byAdelyn Hoser.



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told a Victorian parliamentary bushfireinquiry:

“”Living in an area like Healesville,whether because of dumb luck orwhatever, we have not experienceda fire since about 1963. God help usif we ever do, because it will makeAsh Wednesday look like a picnic.”

(see for example: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/green-ideas-must-take-blame-for-deaths-20090211-84mk.html)The warning was ignored.In the wake of the Black Saturdaybushfires, it is clear that blame for thedeaths must be sheeted on thebureaucrats who failed in their duty of careto the Victorian taxpayers and the courtand tribunal judges who with an aversionfor truth and common sense haveconsistently ruled against law-abidingcitizens who seek no more than to live inpeace and safety.The “Sam the Koala” caper became auseful diversion for DSE, and othergovernment instrumentalities, including theCountry Fire Authority (CFA) to avoid theblame for their pivotal role in the bushfiredestruction of February 2009.THE CFAThe Country Fire Authority (CFA) is bestknown as the front line troops in terms offighting bushfires.It is hard to say a bad word about men andwomen who put their lives on the line todefend lives and property, often when theirown properties are being burnt.This is especially so when the firefightersare unpaid volunteers.However the CFA is not just a Fire brigadethat puts out fires, but is also thegovernment “Authority” that acts andregulates to prevent fires from occurringand/or to minimize the damage caused.In the years leading up to the BlackSaturday disaster on 2009, it would have

been impossible for the CFA not to haveknown that local government and DSEpolicies were creating the conditions toallow a wildfire to cause massive damageand loss of life.However in their fear of upsetting othergovernment officials, senior CFAmanagement refused to stand up to theseother authorities (DSE and local councilswho refused to allow clearance ofhazardous feral weeds and the like) anduphold their duty of care to all Victorians toprotect themselves from fire hazards.Sam the Koala was shamelessly used topromote the CFA, and there is little doubtthat this act diverted attention away fromthe failure of senior CFA management toproperly maintain their duty of care forVictorians and protect them from fire.POST SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2009The Bushfires Royal Commission startedby Premier John Brumby, in the wake ofthe disaster with a hand-picked judge andnarrow terms of reference has about asmuch chance of arriving at the truth ofthings as does the original “Sam the Koala”have of ever becoming a female!The delayed time frames ensures that anyremotely adverse findings will occur longafter the relevant bureaucrats and judicialfigures have moved on or had theirindividual actions forgotten.In early 2010, news reports stated lawyersat the Royal Commission were arguing thatnobody be blamed for the disaster.News media describe the 7 February 2009event as a “Natural Disaster”. That is a lie.The fire event was totally man-made.All fires were either deliberately lit, orcaused by malfunctioning mad-mademachinery, such as faulty power lines.The huge losses of property and life arosesimply because of strictly enforced rulespreventing land owners from removingdangerous vegetation around their houses.



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Culpability rests with the CFA, DSE (bothusing “Sam the Koala” as a diversion forbeing blamed), government MP’s and theirself-appointed and self-serving courts andjudges, be they Magistrates, County,Supreme or VCAT, all of whom punitivelypunished those who dared to take thelogical steps of trying to protect themselvesfrom the (in hindsight) obvious fire risks.Among the positives of the bushfireaftermath has been a (probably short term)realization that families have a right toprotect themselves from fires and thecreation of the interim 10/30 rule forclearing dangerous vegetation.The tabloid media, including the Herald-Sun newspaper must take some credit forthis, through their publication of storieshighlighting the need for a sensibleproperty protection and human safetypolicy in terms of non-native anddangerous vegetation.The unexpected death of formernewsreader Brian Naylor, who dieddefending his home against bushfire was amajor impetus to making the mainstreammedia push the government to allow forclearing of dangerous vegetation nearprivate homes.It is unfortunate but true that The Age bycontrast, has run alarmist scare-mongeringstories to the effect that the 10/30 rule willlead to mass destruction of vegetation andwildlife habitat. That simply isn’t true!It should be noted that it was a letter fromDSE in 2009, that finally (and first) gavepermission to remove the Pine Trees fromour property that previously theManningham Council and VCAT hadwasted thousands of dollars successfullytrying to stop us removing.It wasn’t until late 2009 and followingrepeated intervention from a pair ofcouncilors (Meg Downie and Charles Pick)that at that late stage a still unrepentantcouncil also conceded in writing that I

should be allowed to remove hazardouspine trees and not be prosecuted for doingso.Which gets back to the Martinek/DSEtrademark case.DSE’s core area of responsibilities includewildlife protection, habitat protection andbushfire prevention and management.Public safety and duty of care were arguedby DSE as being included in their coreresponsibilities at VCAT, agreed by myselfand the argument was upheld by JudgeAnne Coghlan.(Although both her and DSE claimed it wasunfair if I were to use harmlessdevenomized snakes for training purposeswhen rivals didn’t have them, ruling I had toput lives at risk in venomous snakehandling courses, a view that led to aWorksafe boss labeling them “Tools” and“Wankers”).From Black Saturday, it has become clearthat both before and even since, the DSEhas failed to deliver what’s expected interms of public safety and that as adepartment, they are culpable for asizeable chunk of the carnage thatoccurred that fateful day.In the VCAT proceedings predating theFebruary 2009 fires and at the shoppingmall after, DSE were wasting time andmoney pursuing myself and snakes thathad been certified by a practicing vetsurgeon, Rob Zelesco as totally harmless.The amount they spent on lawyers atVCAT was horrendous (a full legal team ofbarrister, juniors and the like for a week’shearing and then preparation, adds up toenough to save a few endangeredspecies).The entire week of those proceedingsinvolved DSE barrister Greenhamknowingly lying and claiming repeatedlythat our devenomized snakes hadregenerated venom and were a seriouspublic safety risk.



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One would think that after February 2009,the DSE would have learnt from theirmistake and not wasted time and moneyon unnecessary diversions. However itnow transpires that the Victorian land andWildlife Department (inappropriatelynamed “Department of Sustainability andEnvironment”) has taken up the regulationof chocolate selling by small businesses inopposing Martinek’s trademark rights tosell chocolates to raise money for retireddiggers.As for my own motive in terms of detailingthe “Sam the Koala” scam, they are simple.The public deserves to know the truth andas one who has been a victim of seriousscams and frauds involving governmentdepartments in Victoria more than once, Iknow that such activity should not beallowed.History should record the truth, notfraudulent tales and lies, even if they aredeemed “cute and fuzzy” or in line withgovernment policy of truth avoidance andblame hiding.Furthermore Victorians have in the recentpast, through the government, corruptjudicial officers and a sometimes compliantor under-vigilant media been fed a historythat is simply not true, be it via hatchet-jobnews reports on decent people, publicservice media releases that are not evenpassingly checked and so-called legaljudgments by corrupt judges andmagistrates whose ramblings are treatedas if they come from the mouth of somesort of “God”, when even a cursory checkof their claims would show them to befalse.The “Sam the Koala” “legend” is easilyshown to be a fraud and should beexposed as such!WILDLIFE SHELTERSI deal with many in my own work withwildlife and can say that the job of carers isunenviable.

In the case of Wood and many like her, Ioffer my congratulations for their difficultunpaid work in trying conditions.Nothing within this paper should be takenas an attack on Wood or her wildlife carerskills, activities and the like. The focus ofattention is solely in terms of the Sam theKoala swap and associated matters and toensure an accurate appraisal of a historicalseries of events during a period includingone of the greatest man-made disasters inrecent Victorian history, namely thebushfires of February 2009.THE VICTIMSThere are victims of the Sam the Koalascam.The scam has either directly or indirectlyinvolved the CFA, DSE, one or morewildlife shelters, one or more major newsoutlets, the State Museum and others.In terms of these groups, I deal with all andby and large their employees and workersare dedicated and hard-working decentpeople.Sooner or later the “Sam the Koala” fraudwould emerge. It is a story too big to hide,now that the female at the Museum hasbeen likened to racing legend Phar Lap.However it is important to note that themajority of people associated with DSE,the CFA, wildlife shelters and the tabloidmedia, were unaware that the acclaimed“youtube” video was a bootleg and plannedwell before execution. Likewise themajority of persons were similarly unawarethat the “Sam The Koala” in the museum isan imposter and not the same animal asthe male filmed taking bottled water fromDavid Tree.There is no doubt that news editors, CFAvolunteers and others will be mortified bythe fact that they may have even aided andabetted a fraudulent series of eventsunwittingly as well as diversion of charitymoney to causes less worthy than othersor alternatively on false pretexts.



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The “Sam the Koala” legend was a well-orchestrated but fraudulent campaignbased on a bootlegged script with a maleKoala and a ending with a stuffed fake asin a female Koala.OTHER MISCELLANEOUS ISSUESMy own inquiries of Mirboo North residentsrevealed common knowledge of the Koaladrink water event by Tree and the maleKoala.General consensus was that after theGeelong and Noonan incidents, MirbooNorth firefighters were running around theforests north of Mirboo North seeking outKoalas and offering them drinks of waterfrom bottles.The most relevant question to ask is whyweren’t they fighting fires?Again the same could be asked of DavidTree himself, who had apparently sourcedthe now famous male water drinking “Bob”and hauled him into the fire zone for theexpress purpose of making a name forhimself and the drinking Koala, when hetoo should have been fighting fires.The Mirboo North CFA do also have otherissues of relevance. The man lateraccused of starting the Boolarra/MirbooNorth fires was charged and faced courtlater in 2009.His name was subsequently suppressed bycourt order, but as of 30 January 2010, hisname could be found on this website:http://www.latrobevalleyexpress.com.au/news/local/news/general/accused-arsonist-refused-bail/1581348.aspxand others.It was reported that he attempted to laterfight the fires he (allegedly) started byseeking to assist the local Mirboo NorthCFA.The CFA published images of the area, at:http://www.cfaconnect.net.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=28:mirboo-north-and-

strzelecki-highway-29-and-30-january-2009&Itemid=42.including of the exact area that Tree latershot his famous video.MEDIUM OF PUBLICATIONThe publication of this paper here inAustralasian Journal of Herpetology (AJH)is deliberate.This paper is in relation to AustralianNatural History and also of public interest.It therefore fits within the ambit of thejournal. In terms of the length of the work,it is too long to fit in a contemporarynewspaper or magazine and is otherwiseunsuitable for conversion to TV or similar,although readers should check “Youtube”or other similar outlets for video reports ofthe “Sam the Koala” fraud.Importantly, the detail of the findings andhow they are arrived at cannot beabbreviated beyond a certain point, or elsethere will claims that the findings here are“unsubstantiated”.Such claims will probably be made anyway,but at least they can be independentlyshown to be false.The idea of publishing a book was mootedbut discounted for several reasons, themain one being that 6 of my previous 9books have been banned by Australiangovernments, the usual outcome being thatpolice raid shops and seize and destroy thebooks.With the exception of the first two bannedbooks, Smuggled: The underground Tradein Australian Wildlife published in 1993 andSmuggled-2: Wildlife Trafficking, Crime andCorruption in Australia, published in 1996, Ihad no tangible support from themainstream media in terms of having thebans lifted.In the case of those two books, mediasupport in the relevant jurisdiction of NSWwas good and as a result they forced thegovernment to lift the bans on sales of



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each book and also forced legislativechanges indicated as necessary in bothbooks.In the Victorian context, three books, TheHoser Files: The Fight Against EntrenchedOfficial Corruption, published in 1995, andthe books Victoria Police Corruption andVictoria Police Corruption – 2, bothpublished in 1999 were banned by thepresent Bracks/Brumby government, theban being enforced by Rob Hulls, the samepeople running the Victorian StateGovernment and judicial system today.When the police started raiding bookshopsand shredding and destroying the books inlate 1999 in a concerted effort to hide thetruth about police and judicial corruption(the subjects of the books), the mainstreammedia refused to report on what washappening and on the rare occasionsmention was made of the books, thereports were often false or misleading orselective quoting from corrupt anddefective legal judgments.In other words, if this “Sam the Koala”material were disseminated in a book, Icouldn’t count on support from the mediato protect me from having books seizedand taken from shops.At about $20,000 to produce a print run(ink and paper cost alone) for an average3-6 thousand books, it’d be financiallyreckless to undertake any book publishingexercise that blows the whistle on a fraudthat has involved government in Victoria.Publication of this paper in short print runin this journal effectively removes theserious risks money risks involved in theevent all copies are seized immediatelyafter publication.Conversion to electronic format for generaldistribution, online or by other means, freeof charge as identical pdf’s also ensuresthat the material within has the widestpossible dissemination and that I cannot beaccused of profiteering from the Sam the

Koala fraud in a manner arguably similar toothers I have identified here.The publication in print form in hard copyalso puts a verifiable “date stamp” on thematerial within.This journal is “peer reviewed” and in anormal paper on natural history, the identityof reviewers is rarely questioned as there isno shortage of potential reviewers.As editor of this journal, conflict of interestallegations can be made (and with someelement of truth) and the subject of thispaper is different to that normally publishedin this journal and so in this case I spell outwho the reviewers of this paper were.Included are the following:A wildlife shelter owner, with no connectionto the parties involved, save for having aDSE issued license for their work.A person with legal expertise, specificallytrademarks and defamation.A Koala expert.The author’s and reviewers guidelines arespecified on the journal’s website at:http://www.smuggled.com/AJHFP1.htmSPECIFIC ALLEGATIONSBecause a law firm (TressCox Lawyers) isinvolved with ostensibly protecting “Samthe Koala”, which in this case I read asbeing Colleen Wood and her enterprise, itis likely legal attempts may be made tosuppress this publication and it’s detail.This is made even more likely with thegovernment involvement of DSE and theMuseum of Victoria in the trademarksdisputes, at least one of whom have atrack record of spending indiscriminatelyon lawyers to hide and suppress exposureof the truth.People involved in the fraud (whetherknowingly or to this point unaware) mayalso seek to protect what they see as theirinterests by suppressing this publication.In phone conversations with Martinek,



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David Tree has also indicated that hewould rely on lawyers to protect the lie as itstands at present.While I have avoided making anyunfounded or unsubstantiated allegations,it is important that I spell out what islogically inferred, but potentially disputableand what is undeniable fact, including inthe context of each of the main players.The key allegations are therefore set outbelow. The evidence for the basis of thesefactual claims has been presented alreadyand is therefore not repeated.Anything listed here or elsewhere as“inference” is open to dispute, regardlessof how compelling the inference is, and asa result may be factually incorrect.As mentioned elsewhere all reasonableattempts have been made to speak withrelevant persons, acquire all relevantdocuments and the like and to substantiatewhat is or is not true and correct.GENERAL CLAIMSThe are at least two “Sam the Koalas”.The first such “Sam” is a male Koala filmedsometime between late afternoon 7February 2009 and 10 February 2009drinking bottled water from David Tree.The second “Sam the Koala” is a smallerfemale identified as Sam the Koala on orafter 10 February 2009.On or about 10 February 2009 to 13February 2009, both “Sams” were held atthe residence of Colleen Wood at herresidence, known as the “Southern AshWildlife Shelter” (SAWS).The male “Sam the Koala” is the sameanimal as a male Koala later identified as“Bob” the Koala photographed with thefemale “Sam” the Koala.David Tree and Colleen Wood preplannedand executed the Koala drink video andimages.The encounter with the male Koaladrinking was not an unexpected event as

made out on the film and to the media afterthe fact, but had been planned andexecuted.Wood held Bob the Koala as far back as2006.DAVID TREEDavid Tree was aware at all materiallyrelevant times that there had been a Koalaswap and he made a point of not publiclystating he was aware of the swap.He was able to identify the original drinkingKoala as male and hence would recognizethe substitute female as different.David Tree had attempted to make afamous “Sam” previously, this being hissecond attempt.His public statements reported on 12February 2009 to the effect that “there wasno intention to deceive the public or courtpublicity and fame” is a lie.COLLEEN WOODThe claim is made that she supplied themale drinking Koala to Tree for the expresspurpose of making the Koala drinking videofor the primary purpose of raising money.This claim is based on primarily her ownevidence which we know to be confusedand garbled in terms of “Sam (the female)and “Bob” (the original Sam) when cross-checked with the Tree video and images ofthe same animal.While it is possible to infer (or claim) thatshe received “Bob” after the video wascreated and that Bob’s presence with thefemale Sam, after the event wascoincidental, the stated origin of Bob(elsewhere/Boolarra) negate this possibilityas does the presence of an image of thesame Koala in her care in 2006.There is a compelling (but disputable)inference that Bob the Koala had beencaptive continuously since 2006.Wood was central to the Koala swap andlike Tree failed to advise of the fraud, evenafter the death of the female “Sam” on 6



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August 2009.What cannot be doubted is that it wasknown the Koala would drink from a bottleof water before the video was made, thisfact known to both Tree and Wood.In terms of others at the SAWS, it’d seemincomprehensible that they too would beunaware of the Koala swap, but it is ofcourse remotely possible.Of relevance may be a February 2010statement by McNally to Martinek, that shewas actively petitioning websites to removeimages of “Bob” the Koala, even thoughshe stated that her boss, Colleen Woodhad in the first instance wanted to makemoney from it and then supplied theimages to Reuters.It should be noted that by most accounts,Wood’s care of her animals at her shelteris excellent and nothing adverse in thisregard should be inferred.MICHAEL BEAMISHIn terms of key facts related here, nothingof note can be stated as fact.Unavoidable inferences include that hewould be aware of the fact that there aretwo “Sams” and he has chosen not todisclose this publicly.Based on the Statutory declaration ofBeamish from 10 December 2009, itappears by obvious inference that Treeinvolved Beamish on 6 February 2009 inthe capture of a female Koala for thepurposes of him gaining date priority forthe drinking Koala images of Noonan of theprevious date, for his drinking Koalaimages either just made or to be made.Alternatively or possibly additionally,Beamish was involved to include an“independent” third party to fend off claimsthat the original images of the male were a“set-up”.There is no evidence to suggest thatBeamish had any role to play in the actualKoala swap, making of the video and

images, associated activities or latermoney-making activities in terms of “Samthe Koala”.BRAYDEN GROENThe official record that he made theoriginal Koala drinking video is notdisputed, even if it is not true.The obvious inference to be drawn is thathe was aware that the event was pre-planned and was a willing participant, butthis is not certain and can be disputed.ROSEMARY DUSTINGHer claim that she created “Sam the Koala”in 1986 in an e-mail to myself, seems oddin that as of 2009, no book had beenpublished. I assume she is familiar with“desk top publishing”.However there may be truth in her claimand hence nothing adverse about her canbe assumed or inferred.Her connections with David Tree may post-date the filming of the drinking Koala.RICHARD VICKERY AND/OR MARKPARDOWNotwithstanding the confusion and conflictin terms of ascertaining who took therelevant still images of the Koala drinkingfrom Tree’s water bottle, the official recordand inferences likely are as for BraydenGroen.In February 2010, Tree and his wife toldMartinek that Pardow took the said imagesand that Vickery sent them to the media viae-mail.TRESS COX LAWYERSLawyers have a low public image and thisis often deserved.Notwithstanding this, there is noundeniable evidence of illegality orwrongdoing on the part of the lawyersacting for Wood and her “Sam the Koala”.Numerous inferences could be drawn orguessed, including for example knowledgeof the Koala swap, but all can be denied



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and challenged.The lawyers can dispute claims by othersthat they were either aware of or a party tothe Koala swap, or party to the ensuingcover-up.Evidence supports the inference thatsomeone from SAWS contacted thelawyers, who in turn contacted the Herald-Sun in relation to Martinek’s trademarkregistration application.MUSEUM VICTORIAThe Museum have the second (female)“Sam the Koala” stuffed in their glass case.The current (2010) whereabouts of theoriginal “Sam” are unknown.There is no hard evidence of wrongdoingon their part.Claims by Wood and Tree against theMuseum, Brumby and DSE are just that:claims.I view it as important that these be properlyinvestigated, but frankly I have little faith inany Victorian government entity being ableto investigate itself properly or honestly, orfor one government authority to honestlyinvestigate another without fear or favor.DEPARTMENT OF SUSTAINABILITYAND ENVIRONMENT (DSE)Notwithstanding my own misgivings aboutindividual officers in the department andmy past dealings with the same persons,including at VCAT in 2008, there is noundeniable evidence of DSE complicity interms of the Koala swap. In fact evidencesuggests that DSE as an entity may nothave not been aware of this.The DSE were directed into the trademarkdispute with Martinek as a result of articlespublished in The Herald-Sun newspapersand related inquiries by the reporters.Based primarily on the 10 December 2009Statutory declaration by Beamish and theobvious need for the DSE lawyers tofamiliarize themselves with the relevantimages of both “Sams”, it seems highly

unlikely that the DSE lawyers would as ofJanuary 2010 be unaware of the Koalaswap in February 2009, but it does remainpossible.In terms of claims by Wood and Treeagainst DSE and their complicity in theKoala swap, the same applies as above.That is, I have little faith in any Victoriangovernment entity being able to investigateitself properly or honestly, or for onegovernment authority to honestlyinvestigate another without fear or favor.COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY (CFA)While the CFA allegedly received at least$300,000 in donations as a result of aHerald-Sun promotion of Tree and “Samthe Koala”, there is no evidence of illegalityor misconduct by either party.NEWS LIMITED AND THEIR STAFFThe Herald-Sun in particular activelypromoted the “Sam the Koala”. There isno undeniable evidence of improperactivity on the newspaper’s part.Evidence of the post pointing to a potentialKoala swap on the (News Limited)associated Courier Mail site on 12February 2009, coinciding with the firstemergence of the images in February2009, but remaining online until at leastJanuary 2010 and the continued posting ofconflicting images up to the time of thispublication, indicates that most if not allpersons at News Limited didn’t have a clueabout the Koala swap and associatedmatters.If individual staff members here orelsewhere did have misgivings about theKoala swap, these were kept private.One can speculate reasons and motive forthe changing of attribution of photos fromRussell Vickery to Mark Pardew and thefailure of the news editors to properlyindicate article text changes and the like toreaders, but there may be a simpleexplanation I am unaware of, includingsimple incompetence arising from busy



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schedules involving relevant staff as iscommonly seen in mainstream mediaoutlets.CRITICISMS OF MAINSTREAM MEDIAThe blind following of the “official” Sam theKoala” story involving the imposter Koala istypical of how mainstream media blindlyaccept any rubbish that is shoveled onthem by government departments andrelated entities.This blind faith goes beyond the printmedia and includes the electronic media,including TV and radio.To date, none have published the slightesttrace of any dissenting views in relation tothe so-called “facts” about “Sam theKoala”, including the false statements thatthe male and female Koala are one andthe same and that the Koala drink frombottle of water encounter between Treeand the male Koala was a random chanceencounter with no premeditationwhatsoever.Because the Herald-Sun in particularpromoted this false story the most, itstands to reason that this publication, asan entity must attract the most attention interms of promoting this false and untruestoryline.Megan McNaught as the main reporter ofthe story, appears to be the main player atthe Herald-Sun in terms of thismisinformation, but by virtue of their blindacceptance of the story, the Age inparticular must also be held at fault.As it happens in the post Black Saturdayperiod, reporting on events by the Herald-Sun, while still blindly following thegovernment’s lies in most cases, has atleast occasionally questioned prevailinggovernment policies, while the Age’sreports have been very much in line withofficial lies and hence been of generallylow quality.In terms of my recent own dealings withboth papers, the Herald-Sun has a far

better track record.On 13 February 2007, the Herald-Sunquite appropriately put a photo of myself ontheir front cover, with a handful ofdevenomized snakes and also inside thesame paper, showing me holding the topfour venomous snakes, namely, InlandTaipan (Parademansia microlepidota),Coastal Taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus),Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textilis) andTiger Snake (Notechis scutatus).As no one else in history had been seen(publicly) holding the world’s top fourdeadliest snakes, it was most certainlynewsworthy and worth reporting.While I regard myself as Australia’s mostskilled snake handler, the fact is that myfeat was not a result of that, but rather areflection of the removal of adverse biterisk on the said snakes, and why I can andhave allowed people such as my childrento repeat the feat, (including Death Adders)to round off holding the world’s top fivesnakes.In that report the newspaper stated that thesnakes were devenomized and hence thereport was accurate.In the lead-up to the 2008 VCATproceedings, I desperately attempted toget the mainstream print and electronicmedia to report accurately on the case,noting that DSE’s arguments againstvenomoids were lies and they knew this tobe so, as well as the serious and negativepublic safety potential of their plans tooutlaw and stop the use of venomoids.All media refused to report this importantpublic interest story.That all relevant media people knew thatthe venomoids were totally harmless wasindicated by the fact well prior to the VCAThearings, that on numerous occasions Iwas filmed being bitten repeatedly by thesaid snakes (no effects of course),including by the Age’s online videophotographers.



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At the same time the Age videotaped mebeing bitten by Inland Taipans and othersnakes, a reporter Mex Cooper wasreporting on another snake story, this onebeing a case of a Carpet Snake (Moreliamacdowelli) being found by workers next toCitylink at Richmond (earlier in 2008), that Ihad been called to recover.With no faith in the corrupt Victorian legalsystem and a realization that it generally isunable to find the truth of anything (or moreseriously often deliberately chooses toignore the truth), I had hoped that mediaexposure of the false arguments againstvenomoids would put pressure on theVCAT and DSE to accept the reality of thefact that venomoid snakes are not a risk tothe public (quite the opposite) and thatbanning their use was counter to the publicinterest and the welfare of the snakesthemselves.My attempts to get the obvious truthreported by the media were a failure.After VCAT judge Anne Coghlan handeddown her hatchet job judgment (againstvenomoid snakes), Cooper contacted mestating she was doing a story about thecase.Although I re-appraised her of the salientfacts that should have been reported, sheignored them and instead wrote a hatchet-job article repeating the false claim that thevenomoids were dangerous and public risk.In her story titled, ‘’De-venomised’ snakesruled dangerous”, she stated that thesnakes were dangerous and failed toreport on key facts she herself was privvyto, including her paper’s own posession ofthe relevant snakebite videos.Cooper deliberately omitted to report thatshe herself had seen the allegedlydangerous snakes (including Taipans)biting me, without ill effect and that she andher newspaper had copies of the videos byboth myself and their own camera personas proof of the same.Cooper’s story repeated the known lie in

Coghlan’s judgement that I had at VCAT“produced no scientific evidence” tosupport the idea that venomoids were safe.Cooper also had total access to all exhbitisat the VCAT matter, including via the pdfmaterial then online at the VCEC site(which I had directed her to several times)and hence was fully aware of the evidenceand proof of the safety of the venomoids,including written statements in support ofvenomoids by the world’s two top reptileveterinarians, namely Richard Funk andDoug Mader, the latter of whom wentfurther to state that DSE’s own claims weretotally false.As intended, the Age’s, story by Coopercaused fear among our clients and thus thelosses of many of our long-establishedcustomers, many of whom canceledbookings, in some cases puttingthemselves at real risk by dealing with lessexperienced rivals some of whom have ashocking safety record in terms of fatal andnear fatal bites with venomous snakes,including many being carted off to hospitalas a result of bites by their own venomoussnakes (that are obviously notdevenomized).The Cooper story was posted on theinternet at:http://www.theage.com.au/national/devenomised-snakes-ruled-dangerous-20081015-5128.html, where as late asJanuary 2010 it remained, being repostedwidely by our business competitors and allwho have an axe to grind against myselfand wish to defame my company andpeddle the lie that venomoids aredangerous.The clip has been reposted on the reliablyunreliable “Wikipedia” as proof of “fact” andso another bit of falsehood is in fact at thepresent time promoted by the Melbournetabloid media.In summary, the recent performance ofboth The Age and Herald-Sun havesometimes failed the public interest. In



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summary both mainstream newspapershave acepted the obvious lies of DSE andother government agencies in blind faith inat least two recent cases (the false claimsabout venomoid snakes and the falseclaims about the male/female Koalas).In the case of the Cooper story in the Age,it was a case of deliberate and known liesbeing accepted and then reported byCooper in a deliberate hatchet job with thesole purpose of destroying my reputation,lawful business interests and for thepurpose of peddling statements she knewwere false.While I cannot level the same claim ofdeliberate lies in terms of the Koala story,the failure of the news media to make acursory examination of material they reportas “truth” is a serious concern.EXPECTED REACTIONS TO THISPUBLICATIONIn short, I can expect them to be hostile.I expect to be attacked ruthlessly and on allfronts and from all corners.I would like to be commended for writingan accurate account of Australian historyand for correcting reported historical recordthat is patently false, but frankly I don’t seethat as likely.No one likes to be exposed for frauds,wrong doings or arguably dishonestactivity.Swapping Koalas, failing to disclose it andmaking money out of the caper along theway seems to fit the bill in terms ofunethical activity.Compounded with the misrepresentation ofthe male drinking Koala as a random finddoesn’t help improve the state of play.As a result I can expect resistance to thesedisclosures from parties aligned with “Samthe Koala” and their allies.While I hope the mainstream media willpublicize this paper and it’s findings, thismay not happen and the result may beforced suppression of this material.

Media and others may seek to “characterassassinate” myself in a manner not unlikepast occasions when I have publisheddisclosures of unwanted and inconvenienttruths.Like the evidence of corruption in mybooks, the truth will have to surfaceeventually.In the case of the two “Sam the Koalas” Ithink this will happen sooner rather thanlater.I may be sued, in which case the matterwill be defended relying on the materialwithin and any other deemed relevant.If anything contained within isdemonstrably factually incorrect based onundeniable evidence (not unsupportedclaims and the like), it should be madepublic and at the same time madeavailable to myself.However in terms of the central claimswithin, there can be no dispute.In summary, the “Sam the Koala” in theNational Museum of Victoria is animposter. It’s credibility is now as stuffedas a dead bear in a glass case.As a Museum exhibit I hope it remains andwith a proper historical account to showhow it became an aid for the governmentof the day to shift attention from theirculpability in creating the inevitablebushfire disaster of 7 February 2009.Like their attempts to shift and hideculpability, the Koala caper was a similaract of fraud.CONSEQUENCES FACING MYSELFIt has been suggested that it is extremelyrisky on my part to be publishing a paperhighly critical of actions (or lack of them),by a department I deal with on a near dailybasis, namely the DSE.To a large extent they regulate my day-to-day activities as a reptile researcher,wildlife demonstrator, snake catcher andthe like.Excluding the reversal of a policy favorable



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to the creation of venomoids from 2004 to2006 to one opposed to them since andrelated matters, the DSE have generally todate been fair and honest in most of theirdealings with me at the level of individualstaff members.Hopefully this will continue.Some staff I spoke to about the Koalaswap events agreed that the detail shouldbe publicly exposed and had a similardisdain for any frauds and misconduct insuch matters as myself.If I do have problems with DSE arisingfrom my publication of this paper, myguess is that it is more likely to arise frominstructions from senior management topeople lower in the pecking order.I may be misguided, but I hope that themajority of staff with DSE will be fair-minded about this Koala matter and realizethat my comments and criticisms do notreflect on the hard-working rank and filewithin DSE, but only a small group withinthe department in terms of this and myother adverse dealings with respect to DSEpromoted lies about devenomized snakes.In terms of Manningham Council, moststaff there get on well with myself andsupport my positions against certain

entrenched bureaucrats and councilorsand their reckless anc corrupt conduct withregards to public safety and other mattersof probity. This paper is unlikely to alter thestatus quo. I have had a good long-termworking relationship with many at theNational Museum of Victoria and I hopethis paper does not affect this.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSLogistically this paper’s preparation wasimmensely assisted by Maryann Martinek,however she never sought or got anythingin return for her efforts. As it happens, thepublication of this paper may damage anyintrinsic value her trademarks may havehad.My wife and children are also thanked forputting up with my extended absences, asthis paper was prepared. Various othersassisted with specific requests, includinglegal information and advice, identificationadvice relating to Koalas and various otherthings required, including reviewingnumerous drafts as new information cameto light.An identical copy of this paper is postedonline a week after hard copy publicationat:http://www.smuggled.com/AJHI8.pdf

Australasian Journal of HerpetologyPublishes original research in printed form in relation to reptiles, other fauna and related matters, including thesubjects of classification, ecology, public interest, legal, captivity, exposure of frauds and “academic misconduct”,etc. in a peer reviewed printed journal for permenant public scientific record and with a sizeable print run has aglobal audience.

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