Rehabilitate Wallabies & Other Native Wildlife

Thank you to all our supporters, you have helped over 1,000 animals to be rehabilitated and released this year.

Below is just one example of the work Sydney Wildlife rescue does as a team.

Imagine having an excruciating eye infection and having no possible way to get to a health care professional to have it treated?

When you are a 40kg kangaroo living in the wild with your dependent joey, your chances of getting help are fairly limited…

Thankfully some property owners are astute enough to notice when their local wildlife visitors aren’t quite right and are need of some assistance. The lovely members of the public rang Sydney Wildlife Rescue and we went out to assess the situation.

Capturing this gorgeous kangaroo proved rather tricky as we needed to bring both her and her joey into care. Being a large and fairly fast animal, it was decided that we needed to call in our darter to tranquillise them. The mother was darted first and then her little “at-foot” joey.

Our volunteer vets preformed the initial examination and blood tests on the two kangaroos and then they went to our rehabilitation facility. We needed our ophthalmic veterinarian to look at this unusual case.

The mother kangaroo’s eye was examined the with a slit lamp, stained the eye with fluorescein and tested the pressure using rebound tonometry. The fluorescein stain showed an ulcer and associated infection.

Ordinarily one would apply eye ointments on a twice-daily basis, but - as you can imagine - that is just not possible with an adult kangaroo! Vets decided to trialled subconjunctival injections every 72 hours to allow adequate drug delivery whilst minimising handling. Unfortunately we thought even this was too stressful for both mum and joey.

Advanced technology in the form of a bioglass implant was investigated and the team from Global Surgical Innovations donated a specialised implant which our ophthalmic vet was able to insert to slowly deliver subconjunctival antibiotics over the period of a week.

After a few weeks, Mama Kangaroo’s eye was back to normal and she and her joey were released back to their mob on the same property where they were initially captured.

The volunteers at the rehabilitation facility put in a huge effort for all the ongoing care that both kangaroos required. And special thanks to the home-owners for caring enough about their local mob to call for help

The Australian Honours and Awards system recognises the outstanding service and contributions of Australians.

While typically they haven’t sought thanks or recognition, they deserve both. The Honours and Awards system gives the nation a chance to celebrate and acknowledge those who work tirelessly to improve local communities and to make Australia a better place.

Joan R– For Service to Conservation and the Environment

Lynleigh G – For Service to Wildlife Conservation.

Sydney Wildlife Rescue have had a wonderful year with two of their very active volunteers receiving a medal at the Australia Day Awards ceremony for their contribution to Wildlife.

Joan started up the Rehabilitation facility and is the project manager of the rehabilitate Wallabies and other wildlife projects at the facility.  She also was instrumental in the development and implementation of the idea of having a wildlife only Mobile Care Unit       (Wildlife Vet Clinic).

Lynleigh and Joan have both been co- managers of the mobile care unit since its inception where they ran many fund raisers to raise enough money to buy the brand new RV and then set it up as a clinic. This would not have been possible without the huge amount of help from other members and the donations from the public.

Lynleigh is Northern Beaches reptile co-ordinator for Sydney Wildlife and as well as the OAM, she also received the Pittwater Woman of the year award last year.

Joan and Lynleigh were awarded these OAM’s because what they accomplished would have been a feat if it was their paid day job, but No, they did this completely as volunteers! This is not always easy when you have spent the day at work, then when you get home, you need to look after a family, feed the wildlife in your care and clean and then organize fundraisers and manage the Rehabilitation Facility.

Both ladies have numerous awards for their tireless volunteer work with wildlife and we are soo lucky to have them on our team and see them recognized for the amazing work they are doing for our native wildlife.