Help save the Bare-Nosed Wombat

The owner of a beatiful winery just outside of Canberra asked me to help with a very sick wombat which had mange.

I helped this wombat but realised there are more wombats living on the property and they would all have mange as it's a highly contagious parasite (mange occurs throughout the world, in humans it's called scabies)

We scouted all the gulleys and possible sites where you would expect to find a burrow (wombats live underground in burrows) and identified 10 active burrows.

I built the necessary burrow flaps to install over each burrow. These consist of metal frames with an ice-cream lid fixed to the frame with cable ties that act like a doggy door and a peanut butter jar lid placed in a gap in the middle of the ice-cream lid where we put the medicine in to treat the wombat for mange

When the wombat enters or exits the burrow, the lid tilts and the medicine pours onto their back. Working with animals that are nocturnal, scared of humans and elusive, this is the best method to treat them

To monitor our progress I placed 3 motion censor infrared nightvsion wildlife cameras in front of 3 burrows to record them. It was clear that every wombat filmed was manged. But after a few weeks of treatment the wombats started to look better, new hair is growing in bald patches where they lost their hair and the crusty scabs are falling off

The project is halfway and will continue for another 2-3 months until all wombats and their environment are cleared of mange. Without intervention wombats afflicted with mange face months of incredible agony, deaf- and blindness, organ failure, hunger and ultimately certain death

Projects like this is time intensive and every piece of equipment and medicine is acquired with donations. Without your help this would not be possible and we wouldn't be able to help as many wombats are we currently are

Thank you so much for your support, 

From the Wombat Rescue team and every wombat saved

Links:

• Wombat mange treatment project 1 - status update