Pinky Bandicoot

This morning we had two pinky Northern Brown Bandicoots brought in. Their mother was chased by a dog. They were found scattered in some ones backyard. Two were unfortunately already dead but two are now being hand reared. You can see how small and undeveloped bandicoots are initially. A wallaby of this size would have virtually no chance of survival but bandicoots are tough and have a reasonable chance of survival.

Galah

This baby Galah's nest was accidentally destroyed when people cut down the palm trees they were living in. This Galah is the lucky one - its nestmate went through a wood chipper (and was killed) - when they found the body of that one they realised there were babies inside and this one was fortunately saved. This little fella will need to be hand reared for a few months before being able to be released.

Possum Blood Transfusion

A couple of days ago we had a very sick possum brought into us. His name is Malcolm and had been hand reared by Nina from Ninas ark. He had been gradually going down hill, been off colour. A blood test showed that he was extremely anaemic. In fact the test showed he needed a blood transfusion immediately or he would die. Now we have never done a blood transfusion on a possum before. We collected and cross matched some blood from a healthy adult donor possum and gave Malcolm some nice fresh blood. The effect was almost immediate - Malcolm went from being flat and hardly able to move to being very active and very hungry. He hasn't stopped eating since. The first photo is a before shot and you can see how sick he is. The second one is us giving Malcolm the blood and the last one is of Malcolm as he is today - full of life.

Sea Turtle

We've had another sea turtle brought in. She is another floater - a sea turtle who can't dive and bobs along the surface of the ocean. She is still in good condition and is responding very well to treatment, so we are very hopeful for her.

Black Footed Tree Rat

Most people don't realise that there are native rats and mice. In addition to a lots of small species of small marsupials (like dunnarts & antechinus) we also have a large number of true rats and mice. The best known are the water rat and hopping mice. In darwin we have many different species, but one of the most spectacular is the black footed tree rat. They are quite large - about double the size of a "normal" rat. We get quite a few each year usually after an altercation with a dog.

Wallaby reproduction

After the possum Birth, I thought share this photo of a wallaby teat. Marsupials are different in many ways to other mammals. One way is that in wallabies & kangeroos the joey only drinks from one nipple. When the joey first reaches the pouch it attaches to the teat and cannot be separated from it. As the joey grows so does the teat. As you can see in this photo it becomes quite long by the time the joey leaves the pouch. Next to it you can see the other three teats that are still quite small. At this stage they can have a second joey at the jelly bean stage attached to one of the small teats, with another one hopping along beside mum who drinks only from the longer one, jumping back into the pouch for the occasional feed. The teats return to the normal size when not in use. Amazingly the milk in each teat is different depending on the age of the joey drinking from it so that it ensure the right level of nutrition for the right joey. Even more amazingly they can even have a third joey in suspended animation inside the mothers womb at the same time.

Possum Birth

We all had the most amazing experience yesterday. We got to witness a baby possum being born. While there are possums being born all the time it's a once in a lifetime sort of thing to witness. They are born very embryonic - blind & the size of a jelly bean and crawl from the cloaca (at the bottom left hand corner of the photo) to the pouch (the darker patch near the top right corner). There they attach them selves to the teat inside the pouch. It was amazing!

Turtle release.

With the wet season coming to an end we are receiving a large number of injured freshwater turtles. Most of these moved out into temporary swamps during the wet and now they are drying up are getting trapped. When they go looking for more permanent water they often fall foul of dogs or cars. We got to release half a dozen of these yesterday into a permanent paperbark swamp. They were very happy and so were we. Releasing animals is the best part of our work.