Rehabilitate Wallabies & Other Native Wildlife

On the 13th March, two Sydney Wildlife rescue volunteers accompanied by a national parks ranger went to rescue a Swamp Wallaby that had been hit by a motor bike on one of the national parks roads.  Unfortunately the driver did not stop but a passer by did and called Sydney Wildlife Rescue who immediately went to assess the situation.

On arrival, we found the small joey lying on the side of the road with injuries to its hips and tail. The Sydney Wildlife volunteers collected the joey, weighing only 4.5kgs (9lbs), and took it straight to Terrey Hills Veterinary Hospital.  The vets were fantastic and quickly x-rayed and treated the wallaby who luckily had no breaks but severe bruising and grazes to the whole of its back area.

After the vet treatment, she was taken to the Rehabilitaion facility and put into the quarantine room so we could closely monitor her recovery using our motion activated cameras.  The cameras we have at the facility are worth their weight in gold for situations like this.  It enables us to monitor the wildlife without stressing them further than they already are. In Macropods this is very important as they can suffer Capture Myopathy causing muscle damage due to stress.

As you will see in the photos, the Wallabies posture improves to the point where it can balance on the food bowl.  This shows us the progress from not being able to stand when she first arrived to being strong enough to balance on her own without having to capture her regularly to check her progress.

Sydney Wildlife rescues over 13,000 animals a year and therefore we need to be able to track each of them and fulfill our National Parks and Wildlife license requirements by keeping detailed records of each and every animal rescued. Every rescue is allocated a reference number. When carers have multiple animals, reference numbers become harder to remember and by giving them a name, makes it more personal.  A lot of carers will pick a name that relates to the animals rescue story. For example, Morgan the Swamp Wallaby came from Morgan Road, Belrose.