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Koala Bear stuffed toy attached to a lamp post on the Brooklyn Bridge, Saturday afternoon.
Koala Bear stuffed toy attached to a lamp post on the Brooklyn Bridge, Saturday afternoon.William Farrington
Koala stuffed animals like this one are popping up on poles all around the New York City.
Koala stuffed animals like this one are popping up on poles all around the New York City.ImageDirect
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Koala stuffed animals like this one are popping up on poles all around the New York City.
Adam Levy
The tags on the plushes raising awareness of the brushfires.
The tags on the plushes raising awareness of the brushfires.Adam Levy
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Feel free to pet these koalas — and open your pouch and take out your wallet.

Cuddly stuffed koalas began appearing on New York City trees and sign posts Friday with tags attached saying “1 billion of the world’s unique wildlife has died in the Australian bushfires” with scannable codes to make a donation to koalasofnyc.com.

The idea to place the tree huggers around town came from the Big Apple outpost of Australian ad agency Cummins&Partners, according to AdWeek.

“Our team at Cummins&Partners NYC are absolutely devastated and wanted to help in some way from across the pond instead of feeling helpless,” said Diane Villavieja, the agency’s operations manager, told AdWeek.

A GoFundMe page set up by the agency had raised more than $3,000 by Saturday afternoon. Donations are to go to the NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service, the largest wildlife rescue charity in Australia.

The number of animals killed by devastating Australian wildfires was to be “many, many, many billions,” according to one report.

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