OUR WILDLIFE WORK

Box Hill Veterinary Hospital is a wildlife friendly clinic. We often receive injured or orphaned wildlife. Clients are advised to bring injured wildlife in, enclosed securely in a box or wrapped in a towel/pillow case.

Disaster relief work for wildlife

Wildlife are the forgotten victims of disasters such as wildfires and floods. The animals are often critically injured due to severe burns on their feet, tails eyes, and suffer smoke inhalation. They are seen alive even 3 months after the fires. They suffer severe pain and die slowly from their wounds or from starvation. Those who survive also often suffer from starvation as there is no grass or feed left. During floods macropods are often left stranded and trapped on an island patch where they quickly run out of food.

Since 2005 Dr Elaine Ong and some of her staff have been assisting during bushfires and floods in Victoria. With a license for darting, Dr Elaine and some of her volunteers are able to capture these animals safely and humanely. Many of these critically inured animals have to be euthanased humanely. The ones that can be saved (usually the joeys) are transported to licensed wildlife carers in the area. Without their mothers, the orphans would starve to death. Hence we race against time to capture as many orphans as we can.

On a day-to-day basis, animals such as macropods are also pushed out by building and shopping center developments. They often end up hit by cars or run loose on a major road. Aside from the suffering, they are also a hazard for people as they end up colliding with vehicles. We are often called to cart and capture these animals.