Baby wombats Emmie and Sammy cuddle up. Picture: Mackenzie Watkins.
Wombat Rescue has been named the People’s Choice winner at this year’s Lifeline Spirit of Canberra Awards.
The volunteer-led organisation won the highly contested award voted on by the public from a pool of nominees.
Wombat Rescue began in 2018 when hard-working founder Yolandi Vermaak started documenting her rescue efforts along rural roads.
Her actions have since gained traction via her 680,000 social media followers and ardent community supporters.
Every year, Yolandi and her team of volunteers save hundreds of wombats – including victims of road accidents and those suffering from mange – and rehabilitate orphaned baby wombats.
Members of the public find most of the “patients” in need of care, so Yolandi is keen to promote how to help an injured wombat or an orphaned joey in its mum’s pouch.
She says if you come across a deceased female wombat, check its pouch.
“It’s really not rocket science. If you don’t know what to do, put mum in the boot and drive to the nearest vet,” she says. “They’ll know what to do.”
Yolandi has transformed her backyard into a sanctuary she’s dedicated to wombats, including current residents Freya and Harry.
She also cares for orphaned wombat babies.
Emmie and Sami have been onsite for a few months and will be released when they reach 25 kg after ‘rewilding’, a process in which wombats are slowly weaned off their domesticated state and don’t see humans as a refuge.
Yolandi describes the People’s Choice Award as “just amazing”.
“It shows people are really invested and believe in what we do,” she says.
“It’s good because it shows the community supports us. If you work with a species the community doesn’t support, you’re in trouble… [It] also shows the politicians who make the decisions that people care about the wombats.”
Yolandi and her team still face numerous issues, mange and theft the two most significant.
Two cameras were last year installed on dusk to monitor a joey. By 6 am the next day, both cameras had been stolen.
The only current solution: installing a tracker in the cameras.
“They [the thieves] knew what the cameras were for because there were big yellow signs that said ‘Wombat Rescue’. They knew what they were for and they still did it.”
She says wombat mange also keeps the team busy.
“Mange is a huge problem for us right now. Our mange treatment programs are expanding and we’re doing a lot of work on that. But I can’t keep up, it’s just so much work and obviously you only have the capacity with how many volunteers you’ve got.
“There are pockets of healthy populations in the ACT and we’re working really hard to protect them. But most of them are infected with mange.”
Wombat Rescue uses cattle drench to treat the wombats. It’s placed in small containers on burrow flaps made from a steel frame and an ice cream lid door.
The volunteers head out into the bush every Sunday to put the liquid in the tubs so the wombats self-medicate when they exit their burrows.
As for plans at Wombat Rescue, Yolandi says: “We have been saving for a piece of property to build a sanctuary. We’ve asked the ACT Government, but they aren’t keen.
“They think there’s enough of them already, but that’s a perception we’re trying to change because there’s a lobby group that wants to make it sound like wombats are common. But they aren’t that common and you don’t want to wait until it’s too late.”
In collaboration with ACT Parks and Conservation Service, Wombat Rescue offers a digital reporting tool if you see a wombat: ACT Wombat Sightings Portal.
