It’s dark, you’re on a country road. A fragment of what was once, dense bushland. Suddenly you notice something in front of your car. It comes out of nowhere. Maybe you were going faster than you should have. Maybe you weren’t. You swerve and brake. You feel the sickening thud as the edge of your wheel clips something live. You see it propelled to the side. You’ve hit a koala. Car strikes are one of the biggest risks to koala populations, and you’ve just added to the stats.
You stop the car. The lights are still on, so you can see the koala is not dead. But it’s hurt. You feel sick. And panicked. What do you do? You have no reception to call a wildlife organisation. You’re alone on a dark road with a koala whose life you have almost ended. You can’t just leave it. This is an endangered species. You have a towel in the car and there’s an empty box. You meant to take it out of the car but now you’re glad you didn’t. You manage to wrap the animal in the towel and place it gently in the box. All the time your heart is beating out of your chest. The koala is making a low noise, it’s scared but it’s in shock. Now you have an injured koala in your car. You can’t go home.
You drive into reception, and you call the Byron Wildlife Hospital. They ask you to bring it in. You are greeted by a young woman – a wildlife vet. She takes the box from you, and the recovery journey for this koala begins. You drive home, very slowly this time and burst into tears.
This scene plays out every day on roads all around our region. It may not be a koala. It could be a magpie, or a possum, or a wallaby. But as habitat is destroyed by overdevelopment, as roads wind through what’s left of our corridors and as short-sighted governments continue to log native forests, our wildlife pays the price.
Australia has some of the world’s most diverse wildlife. Among approximately 2.16 million described animal species from a total world population of 8.7 million. We have an estimated total animal species of 570,000. We also have the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world. Last year alone, 144 animals, plants and ecological communities were added to the national list of threatened species. Five times more than the yearly average.
The black summer bushfires killed or displaced three billion native animals. And since 2000 we have cleared millions of hectares of critical habitat. There is a systematic failure by policy makers to stop the attrition. It’s why tens of thousands of people gathered around the country yesterday as part of the Bob Brown Foundation movement to end native forest logging.
One thing we forget to consider in this, is the mental health of our vets and volunteers who do the government’s work, looking after sick and injured animals. They are the people at the coalface of policy failure. They are constantly exposed to the trauma and suffering of animals and in a report tabled to NSW parliament this year it showed that the suicide rate for vets was four times the national average.
Since it opened, the Byron Wildlife Hospital has treated over 8,000 sick, injured and orphaned animals and wildlife. They do this without recurrent government funding. Until the government accepts the recommendations made by independent Senate inquiries and reviews of the Conservation Act, the Byron Wildlife Hospital has to ask for donations, sponsorship, sell merchandise, apply for grants, and run fundraisers like WildAid to raise all the funds it needs to operate.
It’s such a vital cause, that’s why I’m joining Jimeoin, Lehmo and Madeleine West to donate my time to perform at Wild Aid 2024 – Stand Up #ForTheWildlife. Hell, I’m even donating myself to have a Banya bathhouse experience with two bidders at the live auction on the night.
We shouldn’t have to do this, but if the government won’t do it, then the community will always come to the rescue.
Stop logging native forests. And fund the frontline workers in our biodiversity crisis!
Tickets are selling fast – so jump on now moshtix.com.au/v2/event/wild-aid-2024-standupforthewildlife/172082
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox column has appeared in The Echo for almost 23 years. The personal and the political often meet here; she’s also been the Greens federal candidate since before the last federal election. The Echo’s coverage of political issues will remain as comprehensive and fair as it has ever been, outside this opinion column which, as always, contains Mandy’s personal opinions only.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
