![Free feed: ANSTO staff at Lucas Heights today discovered a koala hanging about in a gum tree on the science facility site. Picture: ANSTO Free feed: ANSTO staff at Lucas Heights today discovered a koala hanging about in a gum tree on the science facility site. Picture: ANSTO](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/pLj4pq4ybq6tTvnKybAXAX/1672ca46-eb3f-4ac6-a7c0-b9932c76e167.PNG/r0_52_596_417_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
ANSTO, home of Australia's nuclear science expertise and the OPAL multi-purpose reactor, has a new resident it seems.
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Staff at the science facility today discovered a koala hanging about in a tree on the Lucas Heights site.
The native marsupial looked right at home as it clung on to one of the trees today no doubt making the most of the bountiful feed on offer.
The canny Koala must have known all about ANSTO’s plantation of eucalyptus whose leaves help feed the endangered koalas at Symbio Wildlife Park.
![Koala food: A Symbio Wildlife Park member of staff harvests leaves from the eucalypts at the ANSTO site last September. Picture: ANSTO Koala food: A Symbio Wildlife Park member of staff harvests leaves from the eucalypts at the ANSTO site last September. Picture: ANSTO](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/pLj4pq4ybq6tTvnKybAXAX/cabdde56-4aca-430d-865b-6f578a5eeb21.jpg/r0_49_404_403_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Koalas only like certain species of gum trees and and scribbly gum, spotted gum, grey gum, red gum and swamp gum were planted in 2008 with the support of Sutherland Shire Council.
Symbio has a widely respected koala breeding program in place which regularly introduces new bloodlines to maintain genetic diversity at other zoos.