National Tour Winds its Way Home to the Northern Rivers

A Bare-nosed Wombat receives a health check-up by Hills Wildlife Sanctuary’s Dr Audrey Shen and Dr Harry Sollom along with Wildlife Recovery Australia locum vet Dr. Rosie Booth.

Following a productive and busy week meeting with parliamentarians, media, wildlife rescuers and members of the community in Sydney, Wildlife Recovery Australia’s National Tour entered its 11th week back on home territory on the north coast of New South Wales.

Hills Sanctuary CEO Ben Dessen and his human, feathered, and scaled colleagues were kind enough to support our visit to Sydney Parliament House last week, so we returned the favour by bringing “Matilda” to their beautiful sanctuary premises in Dural.

Dr. Bree Talbot from Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital conducting a health check on a koala at Port Stephens Koala Hospital.

Matilda and the team then travelled north to beautiful Port Stephens, where we opened her doors to collaborate with the team at the Port Stephens Koala Hospital. After touring this state-of-the-art facility, whose veterinary care extends to all wildlife, our Dr. Bree Talbot and Vet Nurse Chloe Lawrence- worked alongside Dr. Tom Tran and his team to provide health checks and treatments 🩺 for some of the hospital's patients, including two ringtail possums, a pelican, a Gould's petrel, and, of course, a koala!

Dedicated koala hospitals and wild breeding programs like Port Macquarie's Koala Hospital and Guulabaa, Place of the Koala are needed to ensure the survival of this iconic endangered species.

Our penultimate stop was Port Macquarie's Koala Hospital, owned and operated by Koala Conservation Australia.

Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. Bree Talbot and Vet Nurse Chloe Lawrence spent the day on site at Guulabaa - Place of Koala, collaborating with Koala Conservation Australia's Wild Breeding Centre. In addition to conducting Important health checks and treatment for exhibit koalas, we treated some of the region's wildlife including water dragons, swamp wallabies and tawny frogmouths.

Collaborating with other facilities, sharing knowledge and working together to protect Australia's precious wildlife is a rewarding experience and we are grateful to all of the organisations across the nation that have welcomed our national tour.