ANIMAL STORIES
Every one of them has a road behind them
These are animals currently in our care or recently returned to the wild. We share them because a number in an annual report cannot explain what an 18 month rehabilitation actually looks like.
In Care
Marlo
An endangered species orphan whose rehabilitation is being run alongside state recovery ecologists.
Brush-tailed rock wallabies are endangered in South Australia, so Marlo’s care is coordinated with state recovery ecologists and follows a specific protocol: minimal handling, species-appropriate browse, and rocky terrain in his enclosure so he develops the foot strength his habitat demands. He is destined for a monitored release site rather than a general one, and […]
Permanent Resident
Dusty
Blind in one eye and unable to judge distance in a mob — one of the few we could not send back.
Dusty lost the sight in his left eye to an untreatable injury before he came to us. Releasing a kangaroo who cannot judge the position of a fence, a road or a dominant male is a death sentence, so after a long assessment period we made the difficult call to keep him. He lives on […]
Released
Harlow
Struck by a car while carrying a joey — both survived, and both went home together.
Harlow was hit near Mount Pleasant and sustained a fractured foot and severe bruising, with a furred joey still in her pouch. Cage rest is dangerous for adult kangaroos, so she recovered in a large, quiet paddock yard with the joey left in place throughout. Eight weeks later she was walking evenly. They were released […]
In Care
Pippin
The smallest joey we have ever successfully raised — 310 grams, found by a truck driver at 2am.
At 310 grams Pippin was on the very edge of what hand-rearing can save. A truck driver checked the pouch of a doe on the Barrier Highway, wrapped him in a beanie and drove him forty minutes to meet our rescuer. He needed two-hourly feeds, humidified warmth and constant weight monitoring for the first month. […]
Released
Banjo
A dog attack survivor from Kangaroo Island who spent eleven weeks learning to trust open ground again.
Banjo came in with puncture wounds to his flank and hind leg after a dog attack near Parndana. Antibiotics and daily wound care kept infection at bay, but the harder work was behavioural — he flinched at every sound for weeks. Slow habituation in a quiet paddock, with no human contact beyond feeding, brought him […]
In Care
Willow
Pulled from her mother's pouch on the Sturt Highway at 900 grams, cold and barely responsive.
Willow arrived weighing 900 grams — furless, hypothermic and about four months from the day she would have first put her head out of the pouch. Her carer kept her in a knitted pouch against a heat pad for six weeks, feeding a low-lactose formula every three hours through the night. She is now 4.1 […]
Sponsor the next joey through the night
A hand-raised joey drinks its way through roughly $1,900 of specialist formula before it is weaned. Your support is what keeps the kitchen bench stocked.