To Care, or not to Care?
Many wildlife organisations play no active role in the provision of care information to non-licensed carers despite the fact that the provision of such information might assist in ensuring the general health and well being of an Australian native animal. The aim of these organisations is to have native animals held by non-licensed carers surrendered.

However, regardless of law, non-licensed carers do hold Australian native animals and another purpose of this site is to provide short term care information that might assist a non-licensed carer to maintain a native animal in good health, and well-being, until such a time as the animal is surrendered or released. I have found in my experience that initial care is often the most crucial care.

There is simply nothing more disheartening than to receive a native animal that has been surrendered by a non-licensed carer who, despite all good intentions, simply did not have access to basic information that would have ensured the health and well-being of the animal they held. In many cases, but not all, these animals are received in a condition of health that is beyond remedy.

As expressed elsewhere on this site, it is illegal for non-licensed carers to hold Australian native animals. If you are truly interested in Australian wildlife care I recommend you join an organisation with this focus, be trained, and become licensed.

Success and Failure
While I have enjoyed many successes in my experience, some of the stories in this website have unhappy endings.... it would be wrong to present a website that does not acknowledge the capacity for humans to make mistakes. And even licensed carers make mistakes... it is fiction to suggest that they don't.

What about Habitat?
Many voluntary wildlife organisations play no active part in the fight to conserve habitat and instead focus their respective efforts on the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of surrendered, injured, and orphaned native animals. This is an important focus without doubt - but it is also very small part of the overall picture, for what is the point of expending so much effort, time, and money on caring for an Australian native animal if there is no appropriate, safe, habitat to return it to?

In many respects, the preservation and re-establishment of habitat is clearly more important than caring for individual animals.

Along with organisations that focus their efforts on habitat preservation and conservation, there are, of course, thousands of individuals who are also concerned with the conservation of Australian wildlife and wildlife habitat. And in the state of New South Wales landowners can join a program coordinated by state government through the National Parks and Wildlife Service to have their properties recognised as Wildlife Refuge.

Fourth Crossing is such a refuge, as too are many of our neighbour's properties, and these properties provide valuable habitat for animals that include platypus, echidna, wombat, kangaroo, wallaroo, wallaby, possums, gliders, more than 100 species of native bird, and numerous reptiles.

What wildlife habitat could your property provide?

Move forward......
Please do not confine your reading to this website, there is available an extensive wealth of information on the web about care of Australian native animals that is both greater in detail and even superior to what I have provided on this website.

So that you might be able to provide high quality care to an Australian native animal
- I encourage you to use it all.

Linda

Web site, all photography and resources are protected by copyright

On the WWW since 4th May 2003

Updated 26th May 2008

Here is a glimpse of what you will see at Fourth Crossing Wildlife