The Thin Blue Line -Lizard Rehab
A conversation I had with Mandurah Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre
volunteer, Trish Harris, produced a bit of a misunderstanding. She was telling me about a project involving the Mandurah Men’s Shed making possum boxes.
My mindset went something like this: wild animals can be a problem; possums get into the roof and cause problems; the boxes must be traps to remove the animals. I could not have been more wrong.
Mandurah Wildlife has been running for fifteen years and has been wholly dependent on some very dedicated volunteers. These volunteers do not see wild animals as the problem, quite the reverse. The boxes that Trish was talking about are being placed not to trap possums but to provide them with a safe habitat.
There is little doubt that natural habitats are under threat in the Peel region. The current population of the Peel is about 150,000 and projected to grow to about 444,000 by 2050. It is recognised, globally, that human activity is principally responsible for a radical and alarming biodiversity reduction, a reduction that is generally held to threaten the survival of the natural world and this includes us. The volunteers at Mandurah Wildlife are on the front line of this threat and motivated by a deep love of the animals they rehabilitate and return to the wild.
Meet the Volunteers
I met Lyn Windram and Ronnie McCallam who have both been volunteers at the centre for four years. On the morning, I visited they were working in the Bobtailed Lizard Intensive Care Unit (ICU) established to care for sick and injured Bobtailed Lizards or more correctly, Shingleback Lizards.
Bobtail Sauna
Donning their blue surgical gowns they set to work. It is obvious they know what they are doing.
At this time of year many of the bobbies are suffering from flu. In the sanitised environs of the ICU care includes aspirating their nostrils and bathing their eyes and placing them in a nebuliser where a warm damp medicated airstream clears their respiratory system.
Everything is registered
Their weight and length are measured and they are checked for ticks and put on a variety of eating regimes that may include fasting at appropriate times.
Signs that the lizards are on the mend is when their tail grows fat, which enables them to survive during the winter months when they are semi-dormant. Another sign they are on the mend is when they get a bit feisty, something the volunteers like to see.
Once the lizards are ready to return to the wild, they are taken back to where they were found, for they are territorial and monogamous, mating for life.
