The recent bushfires in the Doyalson, Chain Valley bay and Summerland Point area devastated a massive area of bushland and resulted in the injury and displacement of a significant amount of wildlife. At Doyalson Animal Hospital we treated a number of possums, swamp wallabies, bandicoots and birds that were injured or homeless.
One of our veterinary nurses specialises in native animal care and has been caring for and treating two bandicoots, a swamp wallaby joey and numerous possums both ring tail and brush tail species. They all had skin wounds that needed to be cleaned and dressed and then repeat dressing changes as they healed. The wounds need to be healed sufficiently to enable each animal to be released back into the bush.
All the animals needed to be handfed initially on fruit and grass. The joey swamp wallaby was bottle fed. The bandicoots then progressed onto mealworms with the fruit as they need a protein rich diet.
The good news is that a lot of the wildlife that we saw at the time of the bushfires was able to be rehabilitated. Many of these are still in care but expecting to make a full recovery and eventually be released. The sad reality though, is that there was also many native animals brought into the veterinary hospital that were so severely burnt that they needed to be euthanased immediately. Bush fires are devastating to people, property and to our native wildlife.
