The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital fundraiser has attracted 400 koala “parents” – who paid $50 each – from across the globe.

Each new “mum” and “dad”, who stretch from the United Kingdom to South Africa, will receive an adoption kit by mail and the hospital will get $40 of that sum.

The hospital’s Geoff Best said the program had been “astonishingly successful”.

“We are absolutely amazed,” Mr Best said.

The number of adoptions made yesterday equalled the total usually achieved by the Lord St facility in up to three months.

The hospital was battling to keep up with the influx of emails and calls, he said.

On top of the 400 adoptions, hospital staff was dealing with another 100 inquiries with yesterday.

“Morale here at the hospital is at an all-time high,” he said. “We have had to schedule more hours [of volunteers’ work] to deal with the influx.”

The campaign is the brainchild of Lifestyle and Tourism Public Relations’ Gabrielle Brewer and Greater Port Macquarie Tourism.

Mrs Brewer issued an Adopt A Koala program press release to online media information services on Wednesday.

She said the release was designed to encourage people to spend money on an endangered Australian species at Christmas time rather than waste it on “meaningless gifts”.

“We deliberately held it back until this time of year to get the in on Christmas spending,” she said.

More than 20 news services across the world featured reports about the koala adoption program yesterday.

“The campaign was brought to us by Greater Port Macquarie Tourism as a way to drive focus of Port Macquarie as a family holiday destination,” she said.