Help save the Bare-Nosed Wombat

While it would be too long to write about every wombat we save, as we treat on average between 15 -30 wombats like this every month, I do want to tell you about Pixie.

I was notified of a wombat with mange in the LDK Retirement Village gardens. I quickly went onto Google Maps to see where exactly this was and saw it's on the edge of town, just opposite the road from the nature reserve that links to the Murrumbidgee River Corridor.

She was quite badly manged and our team caught her to do a quick assessment. It is a heartbreaking decision to have to make and weighs heavily on all our souls. But although Pixie had bad mange, she had no infection or open wounds, and she is a regular in the gardens. This means that we can track and monitor her and we also know where her burrow is (close nearby).

So we decided to treat her with Bravecto (coloured blue), and gave her woundspray (to help heal the skin underneath the plaques) (purple spray) and we let her go.

We have been able to track her almost daily as she goes up to the Retirement Village nice lush lawns for grazing every day.

What makes her so special is the bond some of the retirees have formed with her. From a distance, they see her. Not everyone realised she is sick, but they all care and once they knew she is being treated, they are very protective of her. She is bringing a little bit of joy to these people, just by being there, being something different, something that they feel they can relate to I think.

She is a beautiful gentle soul and our whole volunteer team is quite attached to Pixie. We all want her to get better and although it's not perfectly safe living in such close proximity to humans, it will have to do. With our ever increasing city we are bound to venture deeper into their habitat and there is nothing we can do other than try to save the ones we can. Relocating wombats is fraught with danger and while she does have a burrow to sleep in, we want her to stay there safely.

The photos are from day 1 to day 25. On day one her eyes were crusted over with the thick skin plaques caused by mange but after only 3.5 weeks most of the plaques have fallen off and she can see. She does look a little bare but now that her skin is healing she has started to grow fur again.

She is only one of many. Apart from doing mange treatment programs targeting about 150 burrows at a time, we do these callouts almost daily and help many wombats every single month. None of this would be possible without help from people like you.

Thank you so much for supporting us and giving us the chance to help these beautiful creatures.

kind regards

Yolandi