By Joan Reid | Sydney Wildlife Volunteer
Since opening the rehabilitation facility years ago, we have certainly had a variety of animals come through. We wanted to share with you a couple of unique stories of visitors we have had to the facility in the last few months.
We received a call to the Sydney Wildlife hotline about a large eastern grey kangaroo that was in a suburban backyard. The member of the public said that it always appeared at 7:30am each day so suggested that was a good time for us to try to catch this poor kangaroo to relocate to a more suitable area. Early the next morning, two Sydney Wildlife volunteers arrived at the location to be ready for the kangaroos visit. As it is a wild kangaroo, it was decided the safest way of capturing it was to use a dart gun to reduce the stress on the animal as well as ensure we were able to catch it quickly.
As expected, at 7:30 the kangaroo appeared and one of our experienced macropod carers was able to dart her on the first attempt. Once the drugs took effect and she was sedated, we were able to put her in a large macropod bag and transport her to the rehabilitation facility allowing her to wake up in safety and we could assess her condition and behaviour.
After a few days of observation to ensure she was feeding correctly, was in good health and not showing any signs of odd behaviour she was able to be released into the company of a wild mob of Eastern Grey Kangaroos.
Our facilities have proven to be excellent for some species in their rehabilitation phase to the point where they never want to leave.
One bandicoot in the large aviary was unable to be found when we were trying to catch her for release. After two attempts of a few people each time trying to find the bandicoot with no luck, we were puzzled. We knew she was in there as the food was being eaten and there were small freshly dug holes around the floor of the enclosure from her searching for and eating insects. We decided to put a camera in the aviary to make sure that it was in fact the bandicoot eating the food.
The cameras showed after just one night that it was in fact a very healthy bandicoot.
Now more determined than ever to catch the bandicoot three Sydney Wildlife volunteers spent well over half an hour tryng to find the bandicoot and just when we were about to give up one of the volunteers disturbed her out of a very well camouflaged nest.
Being able to provide such a natural enclosure enabled the bandicoot to exhibit its survival techniques which resulted in her being able to evade captured for soo long even though we knew it was there.
This is a testament to how your ongoing support and generosity allows us to provide these animals with such a good foundation for a successful release.
By Linda MacBride | Sydney Wildlife Volunteer
By Joan Reid | Volunteer Macropod co-ordinator
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser