Page 1 - 4WD Australia Magazine Wildlife Rescue

ANIMAL RESCUE
Reduce roadkill and vehicle damage with our important every-driver’s guide to wildlife care out on the tracks.
WORDS BY LINDA LEE RATHBUN | PICS BY STEVEN DAVID MILLER / NATURAL WANDERS
In Victoria’s devastating bushfires of early 2009, one single image touched people around the world: Sam the koala getting a drink of water from a CFA volunteer.
However, hundreds of koalas and indeed hundreds of thousands of native animals around Australia are injured and killed every year on our roads. As travellers roaming this amazing country, we can all do a number of things to reduce our contribution to this unfortunate state of affairs.
The first goal should be to reduce road kill. This is not only good for the animals, it’s good for our rigs and trailers.
Michael Pyne, a veterinarian at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on the Gold Coast, offers some sage advice: “Avoid driving at dawn and at dusk, and if you simply must get that early start, then reduce your speed as much as possible. Heed all wildlife caution signs; they are there for a reason.”
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Steve and I, on our endless loops arond Australia, avoid driving between dusk and dawn at all costs, but if we have to, we drive slowly and we both continually scan both sides of the road, using our horn liberally if we need to.
We also watch for owls. They are at- tracted to insects that have been drawn to the open road by our driving lights. During daylight hours, when lizards enjoy a bit of treacherous sunbathing on the bitumen, we both watch out for them too and do whatever we can to avoid hitting them short of causing an accident; the same applies for birds.
As every tourer knows, it’s impossible to travel without encountering roadkill. Along some sections of the Stuart Hwy and the Barkly Hwy, it’s like death row.
If you do find a dead animal and there is a safe place to pull over, remove the carcass since it will only attract scaven- gers such as wedge-tailed eagles (and Tasmanian devils in Tassie) that may in turn be hit.
Check the pouches of marsupials for joeys. If you do hit an animal, pull over (only if it is safe) and approach it cautiously as it will be frightened and may bite, scratch or kick. Take note of your exact location and contact a wild- life rescue service if possible, or if need be, rescue the animal as best you can. Please contact the authorities so that they can rescue it or put it down quickly, don’t leave an injured animal to suffer a slow, painful death.
To help us rescue animals, we travel with two pairs of extremely heavy gloves (the sort used by firefighters clearing debris). We have several sizes of fold- ing cardboard boxes, the sort found at Aussie Post stores are perfect. We also have old towels, tea towels, pillowcas- es, woolen or thermal hats or socks, a hot water bottle and iodine.
Over our many years of travel, we have rescued fruit bats impaled on barbed wire fences, green tree frogs lingering in busy parking lots, baby
possums wandering lost in caravan parks, echidnas and numerous lizards attempting to cross dangerous roads, and even goliath stick insects escaping brush fires.
We once treated a pet brolga with a broken leg using a tongue depres- sor and a bit of compression bandage to make a temporary splint until a vet, 280km away, could be contacted.
We have removed numerous dead kangaroos from the road, always check- ing the pouch for babies, along with other marsupials and dead birds. We have found horribly injured kangaroos left behind by drivers and waited by their side until we could contact some- one to euthanise the poor creature.
For us, encountering wildlife is our greatest joy in travelling. The least that we can do is try to help these wonderful creatures in any way we can, any time we can. We thank you for taking care of them too!