After a career as a coal miner and union official, Ron Land was looking at retirement at his Port Stephens home, when something else caught his eye and changed his life - a koala in his backyard.
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These days, Ron is the president of the Port Stephens Koala Hospital, a facility he helped bring to life, so that more marsupials have a better chance at life.
And, as Ron tells Scott Bevan in the latest episode of the Newcastle Herald's "Voices of the Hunter" podcast series, koalas need all the help they can get.
He says the local population has dramatically declined, with numbers estimated at fewer than 300, and Port Stephens koalas are "staring down the gunbarrel of extinction".
In this episode, Ron introduces us to a few of the patients currently in the koala hospital and explains why more has to be done - and what should be done - to ensure these iconic animals have a future.
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