Baby wombats Karina and Riley need to be wrapped up warm while they wait for their fur to grow. The adorable marsupials should be snug in their mothers pouches but were orphaned when their mums were killed by motorists near Melbourne, Australia.
Luckily wombat enthusiast and wildlife carer Linda Sauvarin saved the day by extracting the pinkie wombats from their dead mother’s pouches and nursing them to health.
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Linda, who runs a small sanctuary entirely on donations, is bottle-feeding the bald babies every four hours and using heat pads to protect their naked bodies from the Aussie winter.
“I do it completely for the love of it from my own money,” says Linda, 41, who lives with her two daughters at her home in Melbourne which doubles as the Warrandyte Wildlife Shelter.
“I just adore wombats, they are the most gorgeous, inquisitive and gregarious little animals. And when they get a bit older they start playing like little spring lambs.
“They’ll jump up in the air and do 360 spins, it’s the cutest thing to watch.”
Pregnant wombats are often killed on the roads but the babies, protected in the pouch, can survive and be reared by loving human hands.
“They used to just kill any babies that were found,” says Linda. ”I can’t bear the thought of that – they’re such beautiful creatures.”
Wombats are peaceful and sociable animals that survive on a vegetarian diet. When Karina and Riley reach 20-25kg Linda will release them back to the wild where they’ll live in burrows and hopefully breed.
Wombats are not aggressive creatures and their main defence against predators is their thick, hardy rump made from a mass of cartilage. If a wombat is chased it will head for a burrow and block the intruder with it’s hefty bum which is resilient to bites and scratches.
Karina, was found three weeks ago in a town called Healesville, and Riley was picked up two days later at a separate location near Maryknoll. They are both around three months old and have doubled their weight since being saved but it may be two years before they are independent enough to be released back into the wild.
To ask Linda a question about the wombats or make a donation for their care email: wombie@bigpond.net.au
Words by Isla Harvey
Pictures by Duncan Lovett
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