A brushtail possum named Blossom in care at Dutch Thunder Wildlife, enjoying some lovely grevillea.
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Dutch Thunder Wildlife shelter in Koonoomoo is looking for volunteers to help with collecting habitat food and animal transport.
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Shelter owner Kylee Donkers said the two different roles advertised, although non-contact roles with animals, were equally crucial in the caring for those at the shelter.
Mrs Donkers said the shelter had many animals currently in care, including possums, gliders and koalas, so volunteers were needed for “native browsing”.
Native browsing is the collection of native branches from the bush and roadside. It’s known as ‘browsing’ because the aim is to not take too much from one tree.
“It’s things like branches of eucalyptus leaf, flowering gum, wattles, grevilleas, also grasses that we feed to the kangaroos and the wombats,” Mrs Donkers said.
A red kangaroo named Rhonda in care at Dutch Thunder Wildlife shelter, having a feed on a couple of different species of wattle and yummy bottlebrush.
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“We're finding we can't collect enough of it just on a weekend so we're looking for someone to do it on a Tuesday and a Thursday because the fresher it is, the more the animals enjoy it.
“The majority of the possums that we have in care, 90 per cent of their food source is the native browse because we’re getting them ready to go back out into the wild.
“All our parrot species also get native branches to chew on because their enclosures are set up as realistic as where they would live out in the wild.”
Mrs Donkers said current team members had had to go out as late as midnight to collect native food because they were so busy.
Dutch Thunder volunteers Mel and Ricca Lavery.
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“If we don’t have volunteers doing it then we have to when we’re not either working, dealing with the animals or a rescue,” she said.
“So this volunteer role is crucial.”
The other volunteer role being advertised is a transporter.
“The transporter role is where we call on volunteers to head out and collect an animal that a member of the public has picked up and rescued,” Mrs Donkers said.
A rescued kangaroo in care named Mason enjoying a few blades of nice green grass.
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“It’s only dealing with contained animals, so it’s already something that someone has bundled up and needs to get to either us or the vets.
“The transporter role is critical because it frees up people like myself and some of our other rescue volunteers who do the actual rescues or the caring for the animals.”
All volunteers must be over 18, have a current driver's licence, police check and a working with children’s check.
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