Strategic Plans

The Hepburn Wildlife Shelter operates in a forested region teeming with wildlife and popular with people. Unlike the eastern side of Melbourne with Healsville Sanctuary, our region has no dedicated wildlife treatment centre or facility that can cater for wildlife disasters or for the training of wildlife carers. Our plan is to establish better facilities for wildlife care in the region by creating a wildlife treatment and rehabilitation centre, particularly for manged wombats, spinal and nerve injuries (mostly kangaroos) and a burns centre for treating wildlife caught up in bush fires. Such a centre would not only dovetail well with an improvement in the region’s wildlife rescue network by offering a potential wildlife ambulance base and a 24 hour depot for wildlife in need of care, but would become a much needed regional wildlife hospital and triage base for wildlife affected by disasters such as bushfires. We plan that the mange and spinal injury units would become research and teaching facilities, and provide specialist care and rehabilitation on a statewide basis.

Other projects we are working on include:

• Working with Shire Councils, CMAs and local residents on wildlife friendly fencing design and fence clean up.
• Working with Vic Roads on experimental road signage for wildlife hot spots.
• Working with the Koala Connect project on producing a living with wildlife pamphlet for new residents in Hepburn, Ballarat, Moorabool and Pyrenees Shires. This information will reach tens of thousands of rural residents.

We already operate such a wildlife treatment centre but not with the enclosure and medical resources that we really need. During the 2009 bushfires we quickly erected two more sheds to accommodate the many burnt and manged wombats that came out of the fires from all over Victoria. We ran by the seat of our pants, learnt an enormous amount about what we needed, and now we hope to be better prepared for next time. We have learnt that this is a facility desperately needed to support wildlife and wildlife shelters all year around.

Our experience over the many years has led us to realise that the wildlife treatment centre needs to be able to take critical help directly to the wildlife and the wildlife carers. It is simply not physically possible for us to manage the growing numbers of wildlife in need of assistance. To meet this challenge we have developed a plan for a Mobile Intensive Care Response Unit For Wildlife (MICRUW) which will be the first of its kind in Australia.

© 2010 Hepburn Wildlife Shelter