By JESSE GRAHAM
SPRING has well and truly sprung at Healesville Sanctuary, with a slew of new babies hopping, climbing and flapping around for visitors to see.
Though the weather is warming up, keepers are asking drivers to keep a blanket on hand, and to help in rescuing wombat joeys who survive being hit by cars.
The sanctuary is marking the new season with a Baby Burrow display at its Wildlife Hospital, where visitors can learn about keepers’ work to hand-raise and care for young animals.
Between the recently-named koala joey, Hazel, two young wombat joeys, recently-hatched curlews and roaming dingo puppies, there’s also little animals of all kinds tramping around the grounds.
Keeper, Julie Koch, said the sanctuary would be running a competition for visitors, to name the two wombat joeys, which are bottle-fed in public displays.
She said the joeys, about six months old, were orphaned when their mothers were hit by cars.
Ms Koch asked drivers to be aware of wombats on the road, but also to carry a basic kit to help wombat joeys, which regularly survive when they’re in their mother’s pouches.
She said that drivers should move wombat bodies off of the road – only if safe to do so – and search the pouches for joeys, which can survive for up to 48 hours after the mother is killed.
A warm blanket, a box and a can of red spray paint makes up the kit – the blanket and box to keep a joey warm, the spray paint is to mark the body with an ‘X’, to let other drivers know the body has been checked.
Wombats and their joeys often come through the sanctuary’s Wildlife Hospital, with 85 coming through the doors between 17 September 2013 and the same time this year.
Of those numbers, 59 have been brought in during 2014 alone.
The sanctuary will be running talks each day at the Wildlife Hospital during the school holidays, and then every weekend until 30 November.
For more information, visit www.zoo.org.au.
