The 22-wheel mission to save wildlife

Donnie the koala had terrible tummy troubles. Ninja the sea turtle swallowed fishing line. Douglas the sugar glider got snagged on barbed wire. Wombat joeys Kenny and Minnie were orphaned when their mothers were hit by cars. 

There is no average day - or average patient - at the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital in northern NSW, where up to 100 animals can be treated every week.

Head vet Bree Talbot is prepared for anything to turn up on the doorstep of the mobile clinic, a purpose-built 22-wheeler truck called Matilda.

"We see anything from baby birds that have fallen out of their nests, carpet pythons run over by lawnmowers, possums hit by cars or green sea turtles injured in boat strikes," Dr Talbot told AAP.

"You've got to be good at multitasking."

Baby flying foxes, which Dr Talbot calls "sky puppies", were seen in the clinic throughout December and given swaddles and dummies for comfort, having been separated from their mothers.

The year's smallest patient was a 5.29-gram turtle, while one of the strangest cases was 15 green tree frogs found trapped in a metal handrail at Lennox Head.

These animals were among 3000 to be treated since Matilda opened in September 2020 with funding from donors and sponsors.

The founders, vets Stephen Van Mil and Evan Kosack, came up with the idea of a dedicated wildlife hospital four years ago having cared for countless wild creatures in their general practice work.

The death, injury or displacement of an estimated three billion animals during the Black Summer bushfires made their mission more urgent.

"That's a very sobering number," Dr Van Mil said.

"The image of that woman running into the embers and wrapping up a koala went global, and the world realised just how bad things were down here."

Two years on, the clinic was at the epicentre of February's cataclysmic Northern Rivers floods. The vets continue to treat the injuries and illnesses the disaster brought with it.

"Water seems passive compared to fire," Dr Van Mil said.

"But flooding is even more catastrophic in many ways; it destroys habitats and homes and burrows and food sources. The long tail is huge."

The average cost of treating an animal is $555 and the operating costs are $120,000 each month.

Given the toll of bushfires and floods on top of the usual threats to wildlife like cars, boats and pollution, Dr Van Mil hopes state and federal governments will step up to help.

"Wildlife is technically the property of the Crown, which means government owns wildlife, but they take no responsibility for it," he said.

"We're living proof of that."

So deep is their care, Dr Talbot took Donnie the koala home with her in early 2021 while he endured a painful and complicated intestinal problem.

After initial treatment, Donnie went back to his wildlife carer but took a turn for the worse and died while being driven back to the hospital.

"His carer carried his little body towards me and that image is just stuck in my head," Dr Talbot said.

"I was trying really hard to fix him."

About 50 per cent of the animals taken to the hospital don't survive.

"But the other half do, which is the reason we keep going," Dr Van Mil said.

He hopes interstate approvals will soon allow Matilda to respond to disasters and traumatised wildlife anywhere in Australia. 

"We are behoven to do what we can to turn things around as much as we can. We need to give something to our kids to inherit."