Tasmania is sometimes referred to as “The Roadkill state”.
Where I live it is nearly impossible to drive 10 kilometers of road without seeing a carcass of some sort.
I rescued this little possum from its dead mother’s pouch Wednesday night. I took it to the vet the next morning where they’ll look after it until they can pass it along to a registered wildlife carer.
To Tasmania’s credit, we actually have thriving wildlife populations near people, which cannot be said of the other states. Another factor is our twisty-turny shrubby and tree lined roads – which contrasts with the dead straight dirt-bordered roads of much of the mainland. To Tasmania’s shame is our horrifically bad drivers. Add all that together and hundreds of thousands of native animals die on our roads every year.
Since marsupial joeys live in pouches, small orphans get put in socks and big ones go in pillow cases. This is the smallest viable joey we’ve found thus far.
When marsupials are born they are fairly larval in structure. The one that makes it to the pouch first latches onto the teat and literally fuses its mouth around the nipple. When they get older they can let go and nurse at will. This little one was still attached, so I had to cut the nipple away from the mother to detach the joey from her body.
A baby Pademelon.
A baby Wombat being raised by a friend of Imogen.
Oh my that baby wombat is a heart-breaker.
And good on you for saving the baby possum.
Same carer, more baby wombats.
Oh my … broke the cutemeter. How does she get anything done; I’d just want to spend all day marveling at how adorable they are.
The worlds most cosseted bunny.
yup. still smitten.
(hi!)
Yep, smitten is exactly the right word.
Hi Manny.
What a good Samaritan!
Well thank you, but it’s a fairly common practice here for animal lovers to “check pouches”.
On our road I also routinely remove roadkill from the road to the well off the macadam in order to keep our scavenger species, most notably the threatened Tasmanian devil and the Wedge-tail eagle, from getting hit as well. So far, we’ve only seen on dead devil on our road, but given their dramatic loss of numbers due to devil facial tumor disease, the death of any healthy devil is a real shame.
I should also add that one of the great things about Tasmania is that you can take any injured wild animal into any vet and they’ll take care of it until Parks and Wildlife can make arrangements for someone to come get it. This makes it so much easier for the average person to rescue animals, as vets are better dispersed though out the state than P&W offices, and many of these animals need immediate treatment, if only for shock or dehydration.
There is also a wonderful and very dedicated group of volunteers who get training at their own expense in order to become registered carers. On the occasions that I’ve called P&W’s animal hotline reporting an older joey in need of care, they’ve always put me in contact with a carer willing to take the animal in less than two hours time.
The world’s most glowing dog.
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The world’s most at home in a pool dog.
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The world’s most in love with a pillow dog.
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You have to stop feeding Giddy Radium. Bebo obviously wants a weekend at the spa, but failing to get one has improvised her own mudbath. What’s in Hopeful’s pillow? Dognip?
The other day I looked at the couch and he had pushed around the pillow so he could lie down with his head under it. I don’t know what it is about that pillow — maybe all the dead dust mites?
P.S. That’s Sniff. Hopeful, RIP, was the world’s slowest coonhound.
My apologies to Sniff for the confusion.