blind wallabies

Every so often one of our carers has a wallaby joey that goes blind. They develop cataracts and go blind quite suddenly. We don't fully understand what causes this but there are lots of theories. It in general seems to be those joeys that have had a very traumatic life. (ie the ones that were orphaned very young (pinkies), were injured (broken bones), dehydrated and gotten sick(diarrhoea etc)) It may well be something that we is not being met in terms of their nutrition or developmental needs as it seems to only occur in captivity but seems to happen very very sporadically. One theory is that joeys get too much oxygen by not being in their mothers pouch. So think it may be a virus and we have been looking for one but so far no success. It is a central blindness as well as cataracts so if you remove the cataracts they stay blind.
However they cope extremely well provided they are released into a predator free area (no dogs!) and with lots of other wallabies. They become very able at listening for the sounds of the other wallabies and very soon its hard to remember they are blind. They can breed and raise healthy seeing offspring.

Little Red Flying Fox

We had another little red flying fox caught up on a barb wire fence handed in over the weekend. This is her in the bag after being rescued but before being anaethetised so we could remove the wire. She looks very worried. However the wire was removed and the damage is repairable so she should be ok to be released in about a week.

Cockatoo

Unfortunately every few days we have a cockatoo handed in who is suffering from Psittacine beak and feather disease (PBFD) - It is caused by a small tough virus called a circovirus. It is uncurable and all affected birds die from it. They die from the imunosupression the virus causes but it also makes them loose feathers and eventually get beak deformities. It is very common and its likely that up to half of all wild cockatoos die from it. We cannot treat it, or help them so the best thing we can do for the affected birds is to euthanase them. Its only upside is that unlike almost every other disease & injury we treat in wildlife this is not caused by people - it is a natural & native virus.

Outback wildlife rescue is back

Just a quick note to say Outback wildlife rescue is back on chanel seven. Slightly earlier at 6:30 on sunday nights.