Since so many people say in their reviews that Cook's Killer Koala books are the closest they expect to ever get to Australia, here are my three Australian animal stories. In 1995 I was invited to Sydney (all expenses paid) to read a paper on the "Simba vs. Kimba" "coincidence" at an international animation conference. One day I was walking through a Sydney public park when a sacred ibis flew down onto a trash barrel right in front of me, overturned it, walked inside and kicked all the trash out (making a mess), then started picking through the trash for edible garbage. Sacred ibises are not thought of as Australian birds, but they migrate there from Egypt every year.
On that same visit, I went to the Blue Mountains near Sydney. The Blue Mountains are full of wild cockatoos. The birds were as fascinated by the human tourists as the tourists were in them, and would come right into the tourist center to study them at close range. But aside from that, the cockatoos were always fighting with each other, over mates and the best nesting places and anything else. The endless squawking was deafening.
In 1999 the World Science Fiction Convention was in Melbourne; Aussiecon III. There were several American Furry fans among the attendees; Kris Kreutzman, Jim Groat, and others. Just after the convention, about a half-dozen of us went to a big wild animal preserve about 45 miles (or was it kilometres?) outside of Melbourne. We got into a big animal enclosure with several kangaroos roaming loose. The kangaroos gradually surrounded us. Suddenly one them grabbed the map of the preserve out of David Bliss' hand and began to eat it. It took three or four of us to get what was left of the map out of the kangaroo's mouth, and by then one of the other kangaroos had started to nibble on someone's pants. Apparently kangaroos are like goats; they will eat everything.
Since so many people say in their reviews that Cook's Killer Koala books are the closest they expect to ever get to Australia, here are my three Australian animal stories. In 1995 I was invited to Sydney (all expenses paid) to read a paper on the "Simba vs. Kimba" "coincidence" at an international animation conference. One day I was walking through a Sydney public park when a sacred ibis flew down onto a trash barrel right in front of me, overturned it, walked inside and kicked all the trash out (making a mess), then started picking through the trash for edible garbage. Sacred ibises are not thought of as Australian birds, but they migrate there from Egypt every year.
On that same visit, I went to the Blue Mountains near Sydney. The Blue Mountains are full of wild cockatoos. The birds were as fascinated by the human tourists as the tourists were in them, and would come right into the tourist center to study them at close range. But aside from that, the cockatoos were always fighting with each other, over mates and the best nesting places and anything else. The endless squawking was deafening.
In 1999 the World Science Fiction Convention was in Melbourne; Aussiecon III. There were several American Furry fans among the attendees; Kris Kreutzman, Jim Groat, and others. Just after the convention, about a half-dozen of us went to a big wild animal preserve about 45 miles (or was it kilometres?) outside of Melbourne. We got into a big animal enclosure with several kangaroos roaming loose. The kangaroos gradually surrounded us. Suddenly one them grabbed the map of the preserve out of David Bliss' hand and began to eat it. It took three or four of us to get what was left of the map out of the kangaroo's mouth, and by then one of the other kangaroos had started to nibble on someone's pants. Apparently kangaroos are like goats; they will eat everything.
Fred Patten