A walker pulled a koala joey off a python in Brisbane

ABC News reported on November 6, 2026, that a walker named Nell freed a koala joey from a python in Whites Hill Reserve at Camp Hill, in Brisbane. She was out with her dog when birds made a commotion about 15 metres off the path. A mother koala was scratching at a python wrapped around her baby. Nell picked up the joey and unwound the snake. She said the python was about a metre and a half long, and that she did not know at first whether the baby was breathing or hurt.

A man nearby held her dog rather than the snake. Nell set the python in a small tree, checked that the joey's limbs moved and that it was breathing, then carried it to the tree where the mother had stayed. The joey climbed straight up to her. Nell walked the snake farther away so it would not come straight back, then returned an hour or two later and saw the mother and baby together. She told ABC she believed the snake could have killed the joey but would not have been able to swallow it. The account is this rescue, as she described it. It is not a survey of koalas in the reserve.