October 2, 2025 • 19 mins
With the sad news yesterday of Jane Goodall's passing, we thought we'd look back at an episode where her name randomly popped up - and led to an amazing story!
It was during my visit to Lithgow and a chat with Melinda from Kanimbla Wombats - who was hanging out with Jane just last year. If you don't now anything about Jane Goodall and the amazing things she did - have a listen to this. 🤗
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Melinda is in from Canimbola Wombats who I know really
nothing about. You've turned up with a wombat
T-shirt and wombat earrings. That's all I really need to
know. I mean, even your pants.
Yeah. It's all kind of a whole vibe,
isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
Wombat coloured, I'd almost say.I do feel a little bit lost if I
don't go out with some form of wildlife paraphernalia on me.
(00:29):
I'd love to go out with wildlifeparaphernalia on Britney in her
notes that she left for me in totalk to you.
All she wrote is you're gonna love her back story.
Oh, it doesn't disappoint that. Wow, I talked to.
Brittany for like 2 minutes. It doesn't take much for her to
go, Yeah, get in the van. She knows the vibe, she knows
(00:50):
the kind of people, and she's very good at stalking people
online as well. So obviously she's done that and
then just needed a 2 minute conversation with you to go,
Yeah, get in the van. What's the back story?
So, all right, what? What is Canimbla Wombats?
So Kanimba Wombat is a volunteerorganization.
It's myself and one other woman and a cullatan, and we rescue
(01:13):
and rehabilitate wombats. So orphans that have been hit
by, like their mums have been hit by cars, and then they've
needed to come into care to be raised, to then be released back
into the wild. Our main focus is actually on
mange, which is a disease that affects about 90% of wombat
populations, and it's fatal. So we go out into the wild.
It's atrocious. It's so awful and there's such
(01:33):
little known about it. See photos now 'cause I had a
look on your website. Yeah, it's horrific.
So they're, you know, they've got plaques all over their
bodies. They they go blind and deaf and
it's a really slow and painful death.
Is it a wombat disease? No, no.
So it's caused by the Saricotopia scabies mite.
So it's the exact same mite thatcauses scabies in humans.
So it got brought to Australia about 200 years ago on the back
(01:55):
of dogs and foxes and you know, the convicts and things like
that. And then there's no evolutionary
resistance to it because it's only just coming to Australia.
So then wombats have essentiallyan allergic reaction to it.
So whilst on humans, scabies is a little tiny rash and it's
awful and itchy, we put some cream on it, we're totally fine.
It actually effects a wombat's entire body.
It kind of eats them alive from the inside out and their
(02:16):
metabolism slows down and they die a very slow pack of death.
The really good news is though, because it's completely
treatable. So that's what we do.
So we go out, we treat the wombats in the wild takes about
3 months if they're good and behave and get all their
medicine at the right time and then they go on to live a
completely happy health when you.
Do that you're finding wild wombats, and then how do you
(02:37):
find them again to give them their next?
What are they getting? So we use two different methods
of treatment depending on what the circumstances is.
So it's a poron treatment that was designed for cattle and
deer. It's called cydectin.
The chemical is moxidectin and we just literally are tipping
that along the back of the wombats and it's killing the
mites. So purely a chemical that kills
non vertebrate, you know, like ticks, fleas, mites, all those
(02:58):
sorts of things, right? So once you get rid of those
mites, the wombats are totally fine.
We're going out with tipping that on their backs.
If we can find them, it's gonna.Say, are they up for this?
They're not just gonna stand andgo, oh, what?
You got my medicine? Thank you.
Well. Surprisingly, they kind of do so
because they're blind and deaf. When they're really sick, we
kind of sneak up on them at first that they've got no idea
that we're there. So, you know, wow, really,
(03:19):
literally just sitting next to awombat, putting its treatment on
it, and it's just munching away on grass.
It has no idea that I'm there. As it starts to get better, the
blacks come off their eyes and their ears and they can see and
hear again. That's when it then gets a
little bit more tricky because they're a little bit more alert.
Yeah. And they're running away from
us. But that by that point, like,
Anna's amazing. So Anna's, she predominantly
does all the rescue work and she.
(03:41):
Please. Tell me she tackles wombats.
No, she's. Anna's amazing, she should see
her tackle a wombat. No, but the amazing thing is
that she doesn't have to, because she's so good with
animals that she just speaks to them and she'll just, you know,
talk to them. As she's coming up, they start
to learn her voice and then they're kind of just used to her
and so that she can walk up and do that.
Like they're still pretty feistyand they're, you know, might
(04:02):
growl and try and bite you and things like that.
But if we do get to the point where we can't sneak up on them
anymore, we just install a little Burrow flap.
Works like a little doggy door. So, you know, like a little flap
that's in the doorway. Yeah.
Tips both ways. So we just put it at the front
of their Burrow. Wombats walk through, they get
their medicine. We monitor 3 camera traps.
So. Oh.
OK, what automatically they comeout?
(04:23):
Really simple, not rocket science.
It's literally a piece of core flute from like one of those old
real estate signs or something like that.
We cut a hole in it. We put a little jam, Vegemite
peanut butter lid in it. It just needs to hold 20 mil of
liquid. And then just like how as a
doggy door works, Wombat walks either in or out of their Burrow
and they tip the medicine on them.
So then we're going out, we're finding their Burrow every
(04:44):
single week and topping that medicine up.
But they essentially treat themselves.
It's really simple. Oh.
That's amazing. That is really cool.
Yeah. OK, so that's.
A really long answer too. I, I just, I'm trying to get my
head around it. Yeah.
Like, this is so cool that you do this.
How many wombats wait so they can't see, they can't hear, But
(05:05):
as you treat them, it all comes back?
100% So it's not that they've lost their eyesight or their
hearing, it's that these plaques, they're kind of like
these big scabs and they grow over and they fuse their eyes
shut and they grow over their ears.
And so that's kind of causing that blindness and deafness.
But then as soon as they start to lose those plaques, those
plaques come off, they start to heal, they completely return to
(05:29):
full health like there's no ongoing side effects.
Who is funding this? Generous public.
So we, we do a lot of fundraisers.
So that was kind of how CannibalWombats came about.
So Anna's been doing this for a really long time.
I actually met Anna when I was in primary school.
I went to primary school with her kids and I'd go around to
her house as a little kid and there'd be wombats running
(05:50):
through the lounge room and little Kangaroos and things like
that. And it was just such a
privilege. Like it was such an amazing
thing to grow up with. So then in 2020 when I came back
to the area, I started helping Inner out.
Then that was kind of when I learned about mange and, and I
learned that Inner is dedicatingher entire life and self funding
this. And I was like, well, there's
something I can do about that. We can start a GoFundMe and
(06:12):
start a socials page and everything kind of just
snowballed from there. Does everything you get covered
now? Anna still does pay quite a bit
out of her own pocket. She's got, you know, babies that
are living at her home. So there's lots of ongoing feed
costs and things like that. But we we're getting pretty
close to being able to cover ouryearly costs just from the sales
of the different fundraising things like these T-shirts and
hats and books and all those sorts of things.
(06:34):
That is so cool, what's the backstory?
I'm not sure what she's talking.About Should I ring her Kinko
What? You're gonna love her back
story. What?
I've done and she'll tell her story about.
So I think basically I was just explaining how I got into this.
I went to school with Anna's kids and just developed this
love for wildlife and wombats and things like that.
(06:55):
I finished school and I decided that I was gonna start
travelling the world, volunteering with wildlife all
over the world. When I was 19 I went to Thailand
and worked with elephants. From there I went to Romania and
I worked with brown bears. And then in 2020 I was in Malawi
working with vervet monkeys. And then obviously, you know,
2020 happened and the whole world shut down and I came back
(07:16):
to Australia and then kind of started helping out Anna because
obviously COVID, I've been travelling the world.
I didn't have a job so I had absolutely nothing to do but sit
and watch Wombats. My very first wombat I was
helping Anna with. It was just down the road from
me and it had mange and I couldn't believe it.
I was like, I love wildlife. I've loved wildlife my whole
life. And there was this disease that
(07:37):
was impacting wombats that I hadno idea about.
I couldn't believe I hadn't heard about it.
So ready that wombat. Because of COVID, I had nothing
else to do. I literally just stalked her,
followed her through the paddocks every single day, and I
just learned everything I possibly could about the
disease, about wombats, all thatsort of thing.
And yet, like I said, it was at that point that I then thought,
well, there's something that I could do to help here.
(07:58):
And I kind of just started Kimber Wombats from there.
But like I said, Anna's been doing this for a lot longer,
just not under that name. But this.
Isn't your job. No, this is what I do in my
spare time. AKA every hour you're not
working. Yes, I work full time and study
as well. And study.
Yeah, overachiever. Yeah, well, I mean, I wasn't
(08:20):
studying initially, but I I became so obsessed with names
that I was like, well, I need toget a degree and research this
so. What are you studying?
Conservation ecology, and then I'll go on to research my age,
specifically in wombat. And does that then become a job
like you, you get I'm funding asa researcher or?
Yeah, so I'm actually really fortunate that I'm, I am
actually already working in the environmental field.
(08:41):
So I work for national parks andI monitor wildlife for a job as
well. So my whole world is camera
chats. I go to work and I I do camera
chats. I go home, I do camera chats.
What are camera traps? So camera traps is like what we
use to monitor the wombats. It's really amazing.
It's just a motion sensor camera.
We put it at the front of the wombat bar.
(09:01):
An animal or any movement in front of it sets the camera off,
takes a photo and a video. We get eyes on the ground.
We get to know what they're doing because wombats are
nocturnal, so we can't sit thereall night and watch them and
know what they're doing. So I then take that data and we
look through it and we can watchthe wombat getting its medicine.
We can watch the wombat tipping its medicine on the ground
because they do quite like to dothat.
I'm an idiot. They're so it's good for you.
(09:24):
I watch them sometimes, I said. They stare down the barrel of
the camera and they just look atme and then they just tip the
warm but medicine on the ground.Come.
On guys. Do you name them?
Yeah, absolutely all. Right, give me some names.
Oh, there's so many. And they all kind of we we do it
kind of based off the wombat circumstances.
So I've had a Rocky her her Burrow was under a rock.
(09:45):
Bucky. He was from Buckaroo, which is
town. Don't ask me where it is.
It's an absolute middle of nowhere.
That's all I know. OK.
And then, yeah, just it's it's actually really hard to think of
animal names. So I started my animals that I
was rescuing, I started naming them after artists, different
people name them after singers. It's really hard.
Run out of names. Of names and I always joke.
I'm like, if I ever have a childI'm not gonna have a name of.
(10:05):
Use them all up. Yeah, this is my son.
Rocky outcrops. Yeah, sorry, I'm just used to
naming them that way. That's where they found.
This is my daughter hospital. Yeah, I got the name.
Ohh wow. OK, so is there going to be a
(10:27):
point where you can do somethingdifferent to the core flute
signs and the little thing tipping out onto them?
Is there? Is that a goal?
I think that whilst ever we're using this medicine like don't
fix what's not broken, the flapsare amazing.
They were invented 20 years ago by wombat protection society and
they've just continued to work. You know, there's no need to
(10:48):
change that. But ideally I think the research
will lead to. So once you treat a wombat,
there's nothing to prevent them from getting mange again.
Yeah. And so in order to fix this
problem, it's. A medicine, isn't it?
Yeah. And so it's trying to come up
with some way that is actually going to prevent wombats from
getting it in the first place. Because we can treat the wombats
that we know about, but if people don't know about mange,
(11:10):
how the wombats gonna get treated, We can only treat them
if people report them to us and let us know that they're there.
So yeah, I think a more long term solution would would be
good. I was so excited.
There was a reel that I put up recently and oh, you have to
have a look at it. Riverbank Franks.
His name lives on the riverbank.The.
Name Frank. No, no, his name's Kevin.
(11:32):
I was really confused by the whole day, but he did this
incredible poem he's in in Dubbo.
And one of the people that commented on it, You'll know
this name straight up. Josh Neal.
Oh, yeah. I was like, Oh my God, he's just
Neal. And he said Anya.
So for those who don't know who he is, him and his daughter
(11:53):
Ashley, with their family on their property, they, well, they
look after animals, don't they? And wombats.
There's volunteers all over Australia and I always feel
funny when I get asked to come in and and be interviewed about
things and I said it's, it's notme, it's a team effort, it's a
community effort. It's everyone doing everything
that they possibly can and so there's hundreds of volunteer
(12:14):
careers. Are there really?
All over Australia and these people are dedicating their
entire lives to saving animals so they're out there and they're
just literally funding it most of the time out of their own
pockets and they're rescuing little animals that are hit by
cars or infected with diseases like mange and rehabilitating
them and and putting them out into the wild there's an
(12:34):
astronomical amount of people who are just doing amazing
things you. Know what's great about the kind
of the social media media stuff that Josh put out there when you
do those things and you talking about this now like I've never
heard of mange before I started looking at your stuff online.
I didn't know. I mean, I've learned a lot about
wombats, man. They can be feisty, them
wombats. Yeah, I.
(12:55):
Didn't know that they are so cheeky.
And, you know, I think that we often, you know, will get calls
about wombats who are perhaps not completely wild or something
that need to be rescued, that they've turned up in someone's
backyard and things like that. And I think often people think
that they're doing a really, really good thing.
They're going to stop and there's a little baby on the
side of the road in a mum's pouch and they go, how cute
(13:16):
would it be to have a pet wombat?
Like people always say, Oh my God how amazing is it to have a
pet wombat? 100%.
They're terrifying once their hormones kick in, like wombats
and a lot of other wildlife and things like that.
They're not pets, they're wild animals and they've got that
wild instinct in them. And so you need that awareness
to be like, actually, that wombats going to riff up your
(13:36):
house and chase you and want to bite you and things like that.
I see them on their they're not.They're not pets.
They are amazing when they're babies.
They're so cuddly because that'swhat they like with their moms.
Their moms are affectionate and loving.
They stay with their moms for about two years.
And so our rescues stay with us for about two years.
And they think that they're yourmom, that you're their mom.
Sorry. And they're cuddly and they want
(13:58):
to be loved and held. And then because of wombat, I
see it happen in the wild. It's cuddling up to its mom.
One night, foreman's kicking, the next night it's out of there
because not see you later. And they're chasing each other
around like they're. Yeah.
And so they do that with us. Well, they bite.
That's what it is. They bite.
Oh yeah, and. It's quite a mean bite, too.
Absolutely, because if you thinkabout it, they're they're
borrowing, they're eating through roots, their teeth and
(14:19):
their their defence mechanism like they'll attack other
wombats and. Their butt is their defence
mechanism. They crush yells of things that
are going after them in their. Burrow, they are amazing.
How does that work? So it's just, it's kind of just
plates of bone. And so if they're being chased
or something like that, or they've got a baby in their
Burrow, they'll literally just block the hole with their butt
(14:41):
and something can just hammer into that.
And you know, they'll get some, they'll get some scars and, and
things, but they survive. Hmm.
And apparently if something tries to get in into the Burrow,
they can just thank upwards withtheir butt and.
They're unbelievably powerful animals.
Wow, that's so cool. So now I know from what you've
(15:03):
just said, you don't have one asa.
Pet No. So we've, you know, I mean you.
Didn't bring one here, I said toBrittany.
She'd better turn up with a wombat in the pod van.
And no, our goal is to keep our wombats as wild as possible.
So we're raising them, but the, the goal is for them to go out
and be wild wombats. Yeah.
So, you know, you try not to humanize them.
Obviously they, they know they're carrots and they know
(15:25):
that they're carers are their mum and that they're, you know,
you can love and cuddle them andall those things because that's
important. That's what their wild mum is
doing right. But a little wombat in the wild
isn't going to be going up to every other wombat and getting
that attention. They're just getting it from
their mum. And so that's really important
for us when we rescue animals isfor them to just have that with
their mum, their, you know, adoptive human mum.
And then they develop the skillsto be wild and best case
(15:47):
scenario, they go out into the wild and they live beautiful,
healthy, happy, independent. Lives awesome work that you're
doing. I think it's so cool.
You got any more plans for travelling overseas and doing
that stuff? You know, currently it is a
little bit tricky to find the time now with everything, but I
did get to go to South Africa last year.
So kind of in 2020 my trip was cut in half.
(16:07):
I was in Malawi and I was actually meant to go on from
there to the Jane Goodall Institute in South Africa.
Africa. Yeah, obviously I had to come
home. And so I got to finish off that
trip last year. So I have just recently gone
overseas. Just this time last year I was
working with chimpanzees and I had the absolute pleasure.
It was just perfect timing. Jane was actually there at the
time and I got to travel with her.
Jane. Jane.
(16:28):
Jane Goodall. No.
Yeah, it was so very special. She's been my idol my whole
life. That's.
A rock star to you? Yeah.
Pretty much, and to find myself just travelling in the car, just
in the backseat with her, going between talks and getting to
learn. Look at your face, you are very
mean. So for those who don't know who
she is and what she does. She's a remarkable woman.
When she was about 26, she went to Africa and she got a job with
(16:52):
Lewis Leakey to track chimpanzees.
And at this point, scientists weren't referring to animals as
having personalities or anything.
They were just this complete separate entity.
So she went out and she discovered that chimpanzees are
so similar to us, they actually share 98.8% of the same DNA as
us. And then she documented them
(17:14):
using tools. She took all this research back
to the university in England andthey said to her like she had
all names for them, you know, like Grey Beard and all these
beautiful names for her chimpanzees.
And they said you can't name them.
Like they're just animals. And she just turned around and
went, no, like, actually this iswhat it is.
And so I think she's responsiblefor the way that we perceive
animals now and that we perceivethem as having these beautiful
(17:34):
personalities and these things that are worth us researching.
So she's just absolutely ground breaking for Wildlife
Conservation. So you've been a fan of hers
since you're head? Pretty much like I want to be
Jane Goodall and I kind of joke and be like, you know, I started
doing Kimball Wombats when I wasabout the same age that she went
to Africa. So, you know, watch this face.
Yeah. That's brilliant.
(17:54):
And then you ended up in a car sitting next to her.
And what were you saying to yourself?
Be cool. Be cool it.
Was just so wild, like I don't, I don't even think I had time to
collect my thoughts. Like I was, yeah, volunteering
with the chimps. And then just the opportunity
arose. There was someone filming a
documentary. They needed a spare set of
hands. And I just put my hand up and
(18:16):
said, I'll carry your bags. And so I got to go and travel
and just be in these beautiful, amazing spaces and watch her
talk and present at schools, which that's what I do.
I go into schools and I, I talk to kids about Wildlife
Conservation. So to get to see someone of that
calibre doing that, yeah. I just got so many ideas.
I got off the plane and I just had to pinch myself.
(18:37):
That even just happened. That was just the most wild
experience. What an incredible experience.
Yeah, it was really cool. And like you say, watch this
space. Yeah, this is only the start.
Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. I think that, you know, I love
the idea of, like you were saying, with socials and things
like that, it's these ideas thatpeople haven't really ever
thought about. You'd never heard of mange when
I first started doing mange work, I'd never heard of it.
(18:59):
And it's this huge thing that people should know about.
And so to be able to be growing that space, talking about it,
educating people, going into schools and educating children
because children are our future.I go in and I read my books and
I teach them about wombats and Kangaroos.
And I hope that those children are then gonna go home and grow
up to be humans that respect theenvironment and wildlife a lot
more. All right, that'll do us for
(19:20):
this quick fix. Remember, if you ever want to
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Quick fix with rabbit.
Melinda is in from Canimbola Wombats who I know really
nothing about. You've turned up with a wombat
T-shirt and wombat earrings. That's all I really need to
know. I mean, even your pants.
Yeah. It's all kind of a whole vibe,
isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
Wombat coloured, I'd almost say.I do feel a little bit lost if I
don't go out with some form of wildlife paraphernalia on me.
(00:29):
I'd love to go out with wildlifeparaphernalia on Britney in her
notes that she left for me in totalk to you.
All she wrote is you're gonna love her back story.
Oh, it doesn't disappoint that. Wow, I talked to.
Brittany for like 2 minutes. It doesn't take much for her to
go, Yeah, get in the van. She knows the vibe, she knows
(00:50):
the kind of people, and she's very good at stalking people
online as well. So obviously she's done that and
then just needed a 2 minute conversation with you to go,
Yeah, get in the van. What's the back story?
So, all right, what? What is Canimbla Wombats?
So Kanimba Wombat is a volunteerorganization.
It's myself and one other woman and a cullatan, and we rescue
(01:13):
and rehabilitate wombats. So orphans that have been hit
by, like their mums have been hit by cars, and then they've
needed to come into care to be raised, to then be released back
into the wild. Our main focus is actually on
mange, which is a disease that affects about 90% of wombat
populations, and it's fatal. So we go out into the wild.
It's atrocious. It's so awful and there's such
(01:33):
little known about it. See photos now 'cause I had a
look on your website. Yeah, it's horrific.
So they're, you know, they've got plaques all over their
bodies. They they go blind and deaf and
it's a really slow and painful death.
Is it a wombat disease? No, no.
So it's caused by the Saricotopia scabies mite.
So it's the exact same mite thatcauses scabies in humans.
So it got brought to Australia about 200 years ago on the back
(01:55):
of dogs and foxes and you know, the convicts and things like
that. And then there's no evolutionary
resistance to it because it's only just coming to Australia.
So then wombats have essentiallyan allergic reaction to it.
So whilst on humans, scabies is a little tiny rash and it's
awful and itchy, we put some cream on it, we're totally fine.
It actually effects a wombat's entire body.
It kind of eats them alive from the inside out and their
(02:16):
metabolism slows down and they die a very slow pack of death.
The really good news is though, because it's completely
treatable. So that's what we do.
So we go out, we treat the wombats in the wild takes about
3 months if they're good and behave and get all their
medicine at the right time and then they go on to live a
completely happy health when you.
Do that you're finding wild wombats, and then how do you
(02:37):
find them again to give them their next?
What are they getting? So we use two different methods
of treatment depending on what the circumstances is.
So it's a poron treatment that was designed for cattle and
deer. It's called cydectin.
The chemical is moxidectin and we just literally are tipping
that along the back of the wombats and it's killing the
mites. So purely a chemical that kills
non vertebrate, you know, like ticks, fleas, mites, all those
(02:58):
sorts of things, right? So once you get rid of those
mites, the wombats are totally fine.
We're going out with tipping that on their backs.
If we can find them, it's gonna.Say, are they up for this?
They're not just gonna stand andgo, oh, what?
You got my medicine? Thank you.
Well. Surprisingly, they kind of do so
because they're blind and deaf. When they're really sick, we
kind of sneak up on them at first that they've got no idea
that we're there. So, you know, wow, really,
(03:19):
literally just sitting next to awombat, putting its treatment on
it, and it's just munching away on grass.
It has no idea that I'm there. As it starts to get better, the
blacks come off their eyes and their ears and they can see and
hear again. That's when it then gets a
little bit more tricky because they're a little bit more alert.
Yeah. And they're running away from
us. But that by that point, like,
Anna's amazing. So Anna's, she predominantly
does all the rescue work and she.
(03:41):
Please. Tell me she tackles wombats.
No, she's. Anna's amazing, she should see
her tackle a wombat. No, but the amazing thing is
that she doesn't have to, because she's so good with
animals that she just speaks to them and she'll just, you know,
talk to them. As she's coming up, they start
to learn her voice and then they're kind of just used to her
and so that she can walk up and do that.
Like they're still pretty feistyand they're, you know, might
(04:02):
growl and try and bite you and things like that.
But if we do get to the point where we can't sneak up on them
anymore, we just install a little Burrow flap.
Works like a little doggy door. So, you know, like a little flap
that's in the doorway. Yeah.
Tips both ways. So we just put it at the front
of their Burrow. Wombats walk through, they get
their medicine. We monitor 3 camera traps.
So. Oh.
OK, what automatically they comeout?
(04:23):
Really simple, not rocket science.
It's literally a piece of core flute from like one of those old
real estate signs or something like that.
We cut a hole in it. We put a little jam, Vegemite
peanut butter lid in it. It just needs to hold 20 mil of
liquid. And then just like how as a
doggy door works, Wombat walks either in or out of their Burrow
and they tip the medicine on them.
So then we're going out, we're finding their Burrow every
(04:44):
single week and topping that medicine up.
But they essentially treat themselves.
It's really simple. Oh.
That's amazing. That is really cool.
Yeah. OK, so that's.
A really long answer too. I, I just, I'm trying to get my
head around it. Yeah.
Like, this is so cool that you do this.
How many wombats wait so they can't see, they can't hear, But
(05:05):
as you treat them, it all comes back?
100% So it's not that they've lost their eyesight or their
hearing, it's that these plaques, they're kind of like
these big scabs and they grow over and they fuse their eyes
shut and they grow over their ears.
And so that's kind of causing that blindness and deafness.
But then as soon as they start to lose those plaques, those
plaques come off, they start to heal, they completely return to
(05:29):
full health like there's no ongoing side effects.
Who is funding this? Generous public.
So we, we do a lot of fundraisers.
So that was kind of how CannibalWombats came about.
So Anna's been doing this for a really long time.
I actually met Anna when I was in primary school.
I went to primary school with her kids and I'd go around to
her house as a little kid and there'd be wombats running
(05:50):
through the lounge room and little Kangaroos and things like
that. And it was just such a
privilege. Like it was such an amazing
thing to grow up with. So then in 2020 when I came back
to the area, I started helping Inner out.
Then that was kind of when I learned about mange and, and I
learned that Inner is dedicatingher entire life and self funding
this. And I was like, well, there's
something I can do about that. We can start a GoFundMe and
(06:12):
start a socials page and everything kind of just
snowballed from there. Does everything you get covered
now? Anna still does pay quite a bit
out of her own pocket. She's got, you know, babies that
are living at her home. So there's lots of ongoing feed
costs and things like that. But we we're getting pretty
close to being able to cover ouryearly costs just from the sales
of the different fundraising things like these T-shirts and
hats and books and all those sorts of things.
(06:34):
That is so cool, what's the backstory?
I'm not sure what she's talking.About Should I ring her Kinko
What? You're gonna love her back
story. What?
I've done and she'll tell her story about.
So I think basically I was just explaining how I got into this.
I went to school with Anna's kids and just developed this
love for wildlife and wombats and things like that.
(06:55):
I finished school and I decided that I was gonna start
travelling the world, volunteering with wildlife all
over the world. When I was 19 I went to Thailand
and worked with elephants. From there I went to Romania and
I worked with brown bears. And then in 2020 I was in Malawi
working with vervet monkeys. And then obviously, you know,
2020 happened and the whole world shut down and I came back
(07:16):
to Australia and then kind of started helping out Anna because
obviously COVID, I've been travelling the world.
I didn't have a job so I had absolutely nothing to do but sit
and watch Wombats. My very first wombat I was
helping Anna with. It was just down the road from
me and it had mange and I couldn't believe it.
I was like, I love wildlife. I've loved wildlife my whole
life. And there was this disease that
(07:37):
was impacting wombats that I hadno idea about.
I couldn't believe I hadn't heard about it.
So ready that wombat. Because of COVID, I had nothing
else to do. I literally just stalked her,
followed her through the paddocks every single day, and I
just learned everything I possibly could about the
disease, about wombats, all thatsort of thing.
And yet, like I said, it was at that point that I then thought,
well, there's something that I could do to help here.
(07:58):
And I kind of just started Kimber Wombats from there.
But like I said, Anna's been doing this for a lot longer,
just not under that name. But this.
Isn't your job. No, this is what I do in my
spare time. AKA every hour you're not
working. Yes, I work full time and study
as well. And study.
Yeah, overachiever. Yeah, well, I mean, I wasn't
(08:20):
studying initially, but I I became so obsessed with names
that I was like, well, I need toget a degree and research this
so. What are you studying?
Conservation ecology, and then I'll go on to research my age,
specifically in wombat. And does that then become a job
like you, you get I'm funding asa researcher or?
Yeah, so I'm actually really fortunate that I'm, I am
actually already working in the environmental field.
(08:41):
So I work for national parks andI monitor wildlife for a job as
well. So my whole world is camera
chats. I go to work and I I do camera
chats. I go home, I do camera chats.
What are camera traps? So camera traps is like what we
use to monitor the wombats. It's really amazing.
It's just a motion sensor camera.
We put it at the front of the wombat bar.
(09:01):
An animal or any movement in front of it sets the camera off,
takes a photo and a video. We get eyes on the ground.
We get to know what they're doing because wombats are
nocturnal, so we can't sit thereall night and watch them and
know what they're doing. So I then take that data and we
look through it and we can watchthe wombat getting its medicine.
We can watch the wombat tipping its medicine on the ground
because they do quite like to dothat.
I'm an idiot. They're so it's good for you.
(09:24):
I watch them sometimes, I said. They stare down the barrel of
the camera and they just look atme and then they just tip the
warm but medicine on the ground.Come.
On guys. Do you name them?
Yeah, absolutely all. Right, give me some names.
Oh, there's so many. And they all kind of we we do it
kind of based off the wombat circumstances.
So I've had a Rocky her her Burrow was under a rock.
(09:45):
Bucky. He was from Buckaroo, which is
town. Don't ask me where it is.
It's an absolute middle of nowhere.
That's all I know. OK.
And then, yeah, just it's it's actually really hard to think of
animal names. So I started my animals that I
was rescuing, I started naming them after artists, different
people name them after singers. It's really hard.
Run out of names. Of names and I always joke.
I'm like, if I ever have a childI'm not gonna have a name of.
(10:05):
Use them all up. Yeah, this is my son.
Rocky outcrops. Yeah, sorry, I'm just used to
naming them that way. That's where they found.
This is my daughter hospital. Yeah, I got the name.
Ohh wow. OK, so is there going to be a
(10:27):
point where you can do somethingdifferent to the core flute
signs and the little thing tipping out onto them?
Is there? Is that a goal?
I think that whilst ever we're using this medicine like don't
fix what's not broken, the flapsare amazing.
They were invented 20 years ago by wombat protection society and
they've just continued to work. You know, there's no need to
(10:48):
change that. But ideally I think the research
will lead to. So once you treat a wombat,
there's nothing to prevent them from getting mange again.
Yeah. And so in order to fix this
problem, it's. A medicine, isn't it?
Yeah. And so it's trying to come up
with some way that is actually going to prevent wombats from
getting it in the first place. Because we can treat the wombats
that we know about, but if people don't know about mange,
(11:10):
how the wombats gonna get treated, We can only treat them
if people report them to us and let us know that they're there.
So yeah, I think a more long term solution would would be
good. I was so excited.
There was a reel that I put up recently and oh, you have to
have a look at it. Riverbank Franks.
His name lives on the riverbank.The.
Name Frank. No, no, his name's Kevin.
(11:32):
I was really confused by the whole day, but he did this
incredible poem he's in in Dubbo.
And one of the people that commented on it, You'll know
this name straight up. Josh Neal.
Oh, yeah. I was like, Oh my God, he's just
Neal. And he said Anya.
So for those who don't know who he is, him and his daughter
(11:53):
Ashley, with their family on their property, they, well, they
look after animals, don't they? And wombats.
There's volunteers all over Australia and I always feel
funny when I get asked to come in and and be interviewed about
things and I said it's, it's notme, it's a team effort, it's a
community effort. It's everyone doing everything
that they possibly can and so there's hundreds of volunteer
(12:14):
careers. Are there really?
All over Australia and these people are dedicating their
entire lives to saving animals so they're out there and they're
just literally funding it most of the time out of their own
pockets and they're rescuing little animals that are hit by
cars or infected with diseases like mange and rehabilitating
them and and putting them out into the wild there's an
(12:34):
astronomical amount of people who are just doing amazing
things you. Know what's great about the kind
of the social media media stuff that Josh put out there when you
do those things and you talking about this now like I've never
heard of mange before I started looking at your stuff online.
I didn't know. I mean, I've learned a lot about
wombats, man. They can be feisty, them
wombats. Yeah, I.
(12:55):
Didn't know that they are so cheeky.
And, you know, I think that we often, you know, will get calls
about wombats who are perhaps not completely wild or something
that need to be rescued, that they've turned up in someone's
backyard and things like that. And I think often people think
that they're doing a really, really good thing.
They're going to stop and there's a little baby on the
side of the road in a mum's pouch and they go, how cute
(13:16):
would it be to have a pet wombat?
Like people always say, Oh my God how amazing is it to have a
pet wombat? 100%.
They're terrifying once their hormones kick in, like wombats
and a lot of other wildlife and things like that.
They're not pets, they're wild animals and they've got that
wild instinct in them. And so you need that awareness
to be like, actually, that wombats going to riff up your
(13:36):
house and chase you and want to bite you and things like that.
I see them on their they're not.They're not pets.
They are amazing when they're babies.
They're so cuddly because that'swhat they like with their moms.
Their moms are affectionate and loving.
They stay with their moms for about two years.
And so our rescues stay with us for about two years.
And they think that they're yourmom, that you're their mom.
Sorry. And they're cuddly and they want
(13:58):
to be loved and held. And then because of wombat, I
see it happen in the wild. It's cuddling up to its mom.
One night, foreman's kicking, the next night it's out of there
because not see you later. And they're chasing each other
around like they're. Yeah.
And so they do that with us. Well, they bite.
That's what it is. They bite.
Oh yeah, and. It's quite a mean bite, too.
Absolutely, because if you thinkabout it, they're they're
borrowing, they're eating through roots, their teeth and
(14:19):
their their defence mechanism like they'll attack other
wombats and. Their butt is their defence
mechanism. They crush yells of things that
are going after them in their. Burrow, they are amazing.
How does that work? So it's just, it's kind of just
plates of bone. And so if they're being chased
or something like that, or they've got a baby in their
Burrow, they'll literally just block the hole with their butt
(14:41):
and something can just hammer into that.
And you know, they'll get some, they'll get some scars and, and
things, but they survive. Hmm.
And apparently if something tries to get in into the Burrow,
they can just thank upwards withtheir butt and.
They're unbelievably powerful animals.
Wow, that's so cool. So now I know from what you've
(15:03):
just said, you don't have one asa.
Pet No. So we've, you know, I mean you.
Didn't bring one here, I said toBrittany.
She'd better turn up with a wombat in the pod van.
And no, our goal is to keep our wombats as wild as possible.
So we're raising them, but the, the goal is for them to go out
and be wild wombats. Yeah.
So, you know, you try not to humanize them.
Obviously they, they know they're carrots and they know
(15:25):
that they're carers are their mum and that they're, you know,
you can love and cuddle them andall those things because that's
important. That's what their wild mum is
doing right. But a little wombat in the wild
isn't going to be going up to every other wombat and getting
that attention. They're just getting it from
their mum. And so that's really important
for us when we rescue animals isfor them to just have that with
their mum, their, you know, adoptive human mum.
And then they develop the skillsto be wild and best case
(15:47):
scenario, they go out into the wild and they live beautiful,
healthy, happy, independent. Lives awesome work that you're
doing. I think it's so cool.
You got any more plans for travelling overseas and doing
that stuff? You know, currently it is a
little bit tricky to find the time now with everything, but I
did get to go to South Africa last year.
So kind of in 2020 my trip was cut in half.
(16:07):
I was in Malawi and I was actually meant to go on from
there to the Jane Goodall Institute in South Africa.
Africa. Yeah, obviously I had to come
home. And so I got to finish off that
trip last year. So I have just recently gone
overseas. Just this time last year I was
working with chimpanzees and I had the absolute pleasure.
It was just perfect timing. Jane was actually there at the
time and I got to travel with her.
Jane. Jane.
(16:28):
Jane Goodall. No.
Yeah, it was so very special. She's been my idol my whole
life. That's.
A rock star to you? Yeah.
Pretty much, and to find myself just travelling in the car, just
in the backseat with her, going between talks and getting to
learn. Look at your face, you are very
mean. So for those who don't know who
she is and what she does. She's a remarkable woman.
When she was about 26, she went to Africa and she got a job with
(16:52):
Lewis Leakey to track chimpanzees.
And at this point, scientists weren't referring to animals as
having personalities or anything.
They were just this complete separate entity.
So she went out and she discovered that chimpanzees are
so similar to us, they actually share 98.8% of the same DNA as
us. And then she documented them
(17:14):
using tools. She took all this research back
to the university in England andthey said to her like she had
all names for them, you know, like Grey Beard and all these
beautiful names for her chimpanzees.
And they said you can't name them.
Like they're just animals. And she just turned around and
went, no, like, actually this iswhat it is.
And so I think she's responsiblefor the way that we perceive
animals now and that we perceivethem as having these beautiful
(17:34):
personalities and these things that are worth us researching.
So she's just absolutely ground breaking for Wildlife
Conservation. So you've been a fan of hers
since you're head? Pretty much like I want to be
Jane Goodall and I kind of joke and be like, you know, I started
doing Kimball Wombats when I wasabout the same age that she went
to Africa. So, you know, watch this face.
Yeah. That's brilliant.
(17:54):
And then you ended up in a car sitting next to her.
And what were you saying to yourself?
Be cool. Be cool it.
Was just so wild, like I don't, I don't even think I had time to
collect my thoughts. Like I was, yeah, volunteering
with the chimps. And then just the opportunity
arose. There was someone filming a
documentary. They needed a spare set of
hands. And I just put my hand up and
(18:16):
said, I'll carry your bags. And so I got to go and travel
and just be in these beautiful, amazing spaces and watch her
talk and present at schools, which that's what I do.
I go into schools and I, I talk to kids about Wildlife
Conservation. So to get to see someone of that
calibre doing that, yeah. I just got so many ideas.
I got off the plane and I just had to pinch myself.
(18:37):
That even just happened. That was just the most wild
experience. What an incredible experience.
Yeah, it was really cool. And like you say, watch this
space. Yeah, this is only the start.
Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. I think that, you know, I love
the idea of, like you were saying, with socials and things
like that, it's these ideas thatpeople haven't really ever
thought about. You'd never heard of mange when
I first started doing mange work, I'd never heard of it.
(18:59):
And it's this huge thing that people should know about.
And so to be able to be growing that space, talking about it,
educating people, going into schools and educating children
because children are our future.I go in and I read my books and
I teach them about wombats and Kangaroos.
And I hope that those children are then gonna go home and grow
up to be humans that respect theenvironment and wildlife a lot
more. All right, that'll do us for
(19:20):
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