Dr Robyn Coy and volunteer Sherrie Giles inside the treatment room at Tarcombe Animal Shelter.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Many hands and much heart make lighter work in the wake of natural disasters, but in remote areas, when fuel prices are also at an all-time high, volunteers aren’t easy to come by.
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The predicament adds an extra challenge to those who are desperate for help.
As it is, even the wildlife carers running shelters get no financial support from the government for their own work.
At 69, Dr Robyn Coy, who’s been caring for animals for more than 50 years and runs Tarcombe Animal Shelter, gets up around 4am each day.
She spends her day checking wounds, changing bandages, cleaning pens, performing maintenance and doing all the regular household chores before falling in to bed around 9.30pm.
After her 400-acre property between Longwood and Ruffy got burnt out in the January bushfire, her workload drastically increased.
Not only does she have ruins to clear and structures to rebuild, including her home and animal hospital, she has more wildlife to look after than usual.
“You already had a full-time job, which was called a wildlife carer, and then you’ve got to rebuild and you’ve got catastrophic victims, and then with someone (her brother) in hospital ...” Dr Coy said.
“It’s difficult, but we can’t also get very many volunteers out here; one, we’ve now got the fuel crisis, where it’s so expensive to get here, and two, we’re in the middle of nowhere, so volunteers are very few and far between.
“That’s why I appreciate the volunteers that I’ve got so much that they travel huge distances and put in full days.”
A makeshift pen at the property holds eight wild kangaroos who are recovering from burns to their feet and ears.
A kangaroo that suffered burns during the Longwood bushfire lies sedated on a surgical table to have its bandages changed at Tarcombe Animal Shelter.
One volunteer, Sherrie Giles, who lives and works a paid job more than an hour’s drive away, near Rushworth, helps change bandages at the Tarcombe property when she’s not at her paid job.
Like Dr Coy, whose mother was a wildlife carer in the 1950s, Sherrie also has a long family history of animal care as the great-granddaughter of famed Australian ‘wildlife man’ David Fleay, who was the first to breed platypuses in captivity at the site that is now Healesville Sanctuary.
Sherri has been helping Dr Coy since five days after the fire swept through on January 8, but, since fuel prices shot up, Sherrie said she had been spending half her weekly wage to travel to Tarcombe.
“I’m so lucky to have a really good young vet with me who comes down once a fortnight and checks everything,” Dr Coy said.
“I’ve had a couple of volunteers, Joe drove nine hours from East Gippsland to come and help me for a week.
“They are people I’d never met in person, but I had mentored them by phone ... they went, right, Rob needs a hand, and drove nine hours to be here and Joe camped in a swag for the week.”
Another couple of volunteers from central Victorian Terra Mater Wildlife Shelter, Tania and Sam, also joined recovery efforts.
“I’ve known Tania for many years and she just decided that she wasn’t burnt out, so she would just come and they’ve been here a lot,” Dr Coy said.
“Every time they’re not working, they’re here, helping with fencing and whatnot.”
Dr Coy pointed to a pen they helped build and explained it would be where the injured kangaroos would move to once they were well enough.
“When these guys come out of bandages, they will still need a month in care to make sure their wounds don’t split open again or become infected again,” she said.
Dr Coy said wildlife carers often suffered burnout, given much of their regular work involved euthanasing animals.
The pressure and heartache increases in the circumstance of a bushfire.
“Animals that are injured or beyond saving and no-one else can get out there or will go out there to relieve their suffering ... that’s why carers burn out at such a huge rate,” she said.
“You live with that grief all the time. In Victoria, they’re (carers) all in the same boat, they all struggle to make ends meet.”
If you can lend Dr Coy a hand to help rebuild fences and structures or have goods to donate, contact the Tarcombe Animal Shelter on Facebook.
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