Merindah, the rescue wombat with a fighting spirit, returns to the bush
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I’m trying my best to engage with baby Merindah—and I’m giving it my all.
I’m crouched down in the grass, all smiles, turning on the charm full blast. I only met Merindah a few minutes ago and I’m already a little bit in love. I really want her to like me. But all she wants to do is fall asleep face-down on her mum’s gumboot.
That’s because Merindah is a baby bare-nosed wombat whose nap I’m interrupting.
The grass I’m crouching in forms part of her enclosure in the Belconnen backyard of ACT Wildlife President, Lindy Butcher (the aforementioned mum in gumboots), where Merindah has been healing since she was found with horrific wounds in a storm drain in Gordon in 2020. She weighed just 10 kilos—far less than the 26 kilos of most adults—and will stay with Lindy for a few more months before being released into her natural habitat.
Named by Lindy’s husband and meaning ‘beautiful’ in the language of the Gadigal peoples, Merindah, with her cartoon-cute face and dark eyes is just that—beautiful. But a few months ago, she was almost unrecognisable.
“You can see where she’s healed,” says Lindy, tracing a thick scar that runs down the back of Merindah’s head and neck. “She was so badly hurt when she came to us. She had terrible wounds and they were flyblown.”
Lindy explains Merindah was likely orphaned (“wombats don’t lose their babies”) and then fell victim to attacks from other wombats. By the time she was found, the situation was dire. But aside from her scars and the patch of red fur where Lindy doused her with antiseptic, you wouldn’t know. Especially as she naps happily in the sun.
Merindah is just one of the many (and I really mean many) animals currently in the care of ACT Wildlife volunteers. In 2021, these volunteers rescued and cared for almost 2000 animals. 52% of animals that came into ACT Wildlife’s care were rehabilitated and returned to the bush—a massive feat.
Pet parents will know the time, energy and cost that goes into looking after a beloved dog or cat, but the care of injured wild animals requires all of this and more—with some animals needing more than 18 months of daily care until they’re able to be released back into their habitats.
Lindy’s eyes light up as she speaks of the ACT Wildlife volunteers—of which she is one—waxing lyrical about their dedication, commitment, and compassion. A well-established registered charity, ACT Wildlife’s volunteers pitch in with an extensive variety of jobs—from taking phone calls from members of the public who have hit animals in their cars to giving round the clock care to vulnerable and hurt animals, like Merindah.
“We’re a volunteer run charity apart from two paid staff, courtesy of a Government grant. We have 140 volunteers in total, including 70 carers who take care of our animals and other volunteers who answer phones, serve on the committee, provide administrative and IT support. They’re just amazing. They’re the back-up that allows us to do what we do.”
As well as Merindah, snuffling along in her grassy enclosure (which features two man-made burrows and a heated hutch to stave off cold nights), Lindy is also taking care of a family of underweight Eastern Rosella chicks who are spread between an incubator, an indoor enclosure and an outdoor enclosure once they’re finally ready to eat seeds and fly.
I watch as Lindy syringe feeds them a special growth mixture, wiping their tiny beaks after they’re done. It’s clear this role as a volunteer, while all-consuming, gives a lot back. For Lindy, who grew up in central Australia as a child of missionaries, a deep passion for animals lies at the heart of her work.
“I grew up in North East Arnhem Land and the [Indigenous] peoples whose land we lived on were traditional hunters, so they brought food for the community and occasionally there would be a joey, who we would raise and put back in the bush. That was my first introduction to rehabilitating wildlife.”
“When I moved to Canberra 25 years ago, I’m very aware that we live a very privileged life with all these green areas and bush, but we do that at the expense of our wildlife. So when we do encounter injured wildlife impacted by our living there, I feel the need to put back and fix as much as I can.”
Fast forward six months and Lindy has some great news for me—Merindah has been released back into the wild, and seems to be taking to it like, well, a wombat to the bush.
“We revisited the spot where we left her and found evidence of healthy droppings, which was a good sign, so we knew she had been where we left her in the last few hours.”
“She wasn’t at the shelter where we left her, but we found three other places where she could very well have burrowed deep underground.”
Merindah didn’t come when Lindy called her, but apparently that’s one of the best signs they could hope for.
“Rehabilitated wombats often very quickly reject their carers,” explains Lindy, adding that “they don’t love us as much as we love them, and we have to accept that.”
“She may well have been underground saying ‘If I’m quiet, she won’t know I’m here,” she says with a laugh.
“But there was evidence she was healthy and using the environment—the grass has been trampled, the burrow we built her has been used. We put in a camera and hopefully when we go back in a week’s time we see her healthy and using that space.”
Donate to ACT Wildlife and find out more about volunteering at actwildlife.net
