Brindabella Hills Winery Project
A small wombat population mange treatment program
Our story
Lying in the foothills on the outskirts of Canberra, is one of my favourite wineries, Brindabella Hills Winery.
Our journey together started when the owner contacted us about a mangy wombat that has been sighted a few times wandering through the vines.
They were able to contain her while waiting for help to arrive. She was in a fairly bad way with mange but we started treatment, sprayed her wounds and let her go.
The next step was to implement a population treatment to treat all the burrows in the gulleys to make sure she and the other wombats received treatment.
Over the next year we treated 15 burrows and about 6 wombats. Thanks to the amazing staff at BHW we were able to closely monitor them for a long time.
Although there is always risk of mange returning and wombats getting re-infected, we hope that this small population stays healthy.
Some footage of the sick wombats in the beginning of the program…
Wildlife motion censor camera footage – Week 4
Bum scratching
Weeks 8 to 17 – looking so much better
Why blue? aka
#bluebumbrigade
The medicine we use, whether Cydectin or Bravecto, is colourless which means you can’t see if the wombat has been treated or not.
It is especially important to know whether they are being treated when there is a chance that someone else might report them and possibly treat them or euthanise them.
To achieve this we add blue food colouring to the medicine, which lasts about 2 weeks, and this is a sign to anyone spotting the wombat that they are being treated. This will prevent overdosing by another person if they know the wombat has already received medicine.
We are as always, thankful for the landowners who care about wombats, who reach out and ask for help and allow us access to treat and monitor their progress.
Final weeks..
At the end of the program we were only monitoring with wildlife cameras. In one of the burrows was a mum and her bub who provided hours of delightful watching as we kept an eye on them. Both healthy