S A Bushfires: Paw Protectors Needed For Koalas

[Boronia]

DOLers who can sew may be able to help

Mittens pattern in this link--> http://www.ifaw.org/...-PATTERN-A4.pdf

Paw protectors needed for koalas injured in bushfires

Updated about 11 hours ago

Thu 8 Jan 2015, 5:59pm

Photo: Mittens are used to treat koalas with burned paws. (International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Koalas being treated for burned paws after recent bushfires in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales are desperately in need of cotton mittens, an animal care group says.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has asked volunteers to make up the paw protectors which are used to put over bandages.

"The treatment for burns in a koala is very similar to the treatment of burns in a human being," the organisation's Jilea Carney said.

"It's a regime of infection control, applying burns cream, bandages."

Ms Carney said the mittens could be dropped off at local wildlife care centres, including the Adelaide Koala and Wildlife Hospital at Plympton.

She said a template for the mittens was available on the group's website.

Four koalas were rescued from a fire in Pottsville in New South Wales late last year, and at least two are receiving treatment in Victoria, but some have had to be euthanased as a result of their injuries, including one who received care on a roadside at Chain of Ponds.

The creatures are particularly vulnerable during bushfires because they are slow-moving.

And Ms Carney said it was impossible to know how many dehydrated and injured koalas remained on the fire grounds.

"We don't know what the needs are going to be. When the fire grounds are opened up to wildlife rescuers, they do what they call a 'black-walk'," she said.

"Any injured animals that can be treated are brought straight into care ... but because of the severity of the fires and the amount of fires around Victoria and Adelaide, at the moment we don't know what we're facing.

"We may not even use them all this year but we know bushfires are a fact of life and we'll have a stockpile."

Vet staff preparing for influx of injured koalas

Adelaide Koala and Wildlife Hospital founder Rae Campbell said she was "devastated" with worry thinking about the koalas in need of help.

External Link: A koala wearing paw protectors

"We've got one coming in very shortly and another following it," she said.

"I think over the coming days and weeks there will be many, many more.

"Many of them, if they're picked up early enough and treated, are able to be released and have normal lives."

Ms Campbell said extra staff were preparing to handle an influx of cases.

"We have vets on call and extra vet nurses and extra volunteers on call and we can take 20 or 30 or more at a time if we need to," she said.

"Please, if you have a little bit of time, or a sewing machine that's sitting there, run up a pair of mittens."

The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital has 190 volunteers and three paid members of staff.

Supervisor Cheyne Flanagan said the centre, which on average houses 25 to 30 koalas, will fill to bursting with 100 koalas if bushfires hit the local area.

Ms Flanagan said one by-product of bushfires was that staff were becoming better at treating koala burns.

"We've got probably 400 mittens here and if we had a fire, we'd go through them in a week," she said.