Wattles: WA Wildlife rescue service nurses more than 100 sick and injured animals through depths of winter
Small but mighty – and incredibly cute – sugar glider Honey is one of the many furry creatures relaxing at WA Wildlife as the wooly weather continues.
All eyes and ears were on the tiny glider, who is just seven months old, as he retrieved and rescued a syringe full of milk at the Bibra Lake-based wildlife hospital.
Bal is just one of more than 190 sick and injured animals nursed back to health during the winter months.
Wattle, a young grub or brush-tailed bettong, relished the opportunity to hand-eat an avocado while secured in the arms of WA Wildlife’s Lauren Mills.
Woylies are a near-threatened species as populations continue to decline. It makes caring for little ones like Wattle even more important.
Ms Mills said dozens of wildlife species would look to the warmest corners of Australia’s forests for shelter as temperatures continued to drop.
“They all have their own natural areas to go to, depending on whether it’s winter, spring or summer,” he said.
Bibra Lake rescue and rehabilitation service has been rescuing, treating and protecting local wildlife since 1998. Additionally, the purpose-built hospital facility has space to house up to 10,000 animals each year.
“We see a lot of illnesses and injuries that result from human impact, whether it’s vehicle accidents or injuries and illnesses,” he said.
The nonprofit wildlife hospital has had more than 2,700 admissions this year, more than 300 of which occurred this month alone.
Other creatures nursed back to health include AJ, the western ring-tailed opossum, who takes the time to sniff out his neighbor Wattle.
Western ring-tailed possums are critically endangered, with their only remaining habitat between Busselton and Albany in the south-west of Western Australia.
The youngest of the bunch is four-month-old Tammar wallabie Emoo, who spends most of her time sleeping in a pouch and trying to stay warm, doing her best to grow up.
Tammar wallabies are native to Western and Southern Australia, and the first recorded sightings are believed to be by survivors of the Batavia shipwreck in the 17th century.
Ms Mills said her message for caring for native wildlife was simple: “Let them do what they do naturally.”
“We need to make sure we’re careful on the roads and that it’s really not a good idea to provide them with food… we try so hard to help these animals but we don’t realize how much we’re actually hindering them,” he said.
“When we feed the animals, they keep coming back to the same area and they start to learn to depend on humans, which is not something that should be done in the wild.”
