A lurker flushed out...

[Phred]

Funny that we have got around to wallabies.

A couple of decades ago we lived on a property in the hills just west of Brisbane and I used to always check the pouches of HBC (hit by car) wallabies. I took any surviving joeys home to my long suffering wife who made special pouches so that she could carry them around with her as she worked. She registered with the local Queensland University veterinary clinic so that she could legally have them at home until they were old enough to live on their own in the bush.

As marsupials are lactose intolerant, they were fed a liquid of Di-Vetelact powder with boiled water. The tiny ones, which had not yet grown fur, were known as 'skinnys' and had to be fed every two hours around the clock. All very rewarding though.

For some reason we never saw any kangaroos around there even though they were common no more than thirty minutes drive away.

[Dad-1]

Nice story Phred,

Gotta like someone who loves wild life & trains !!

My late Sister lived near Cairns and used to look after injured &
abandoned bats. Some may find them disgusting, but hey they
all help make up the wonderful side of this old world.

Geoff T.

[Phred]

Dad-1, I am grateful for your sister's work to help the bats (I'm assuming they were fruit bats, not the little diddy ones). Most people just want them wiped out even though they are crucial to the environment.

The Greater Brisbane area was an absolute paradise of zoological and botanical wonders when I arrived here in 1969, although I didn't realise that it had already been much degraded from what it was before European settlement. Most of it is now covered in housing estates and in the next decade or so Brisbane is forecast to become a 'mega city' stretching from the NSW border to Noosa, a distance of about 250 km! I'm glad I got to explore it before 'development' happened.