Passion for animals drives Bridgetown Wildlife Service founder Shane Williams’ two decades of dedication

Baby joey Lana is cradled in her warm handmade pouch with her foot wrapped in bright pink bandages. She and her twin brother are some of the many animals rescued in Bridgetown and the surrounding area who are on the mend before they head back to their natural environment. Bridgetown Wildlife Rescue founder Shane Williams has dedicated her life to caring for animals for the past 20 years, with a mother-like touch for rehabilitating the injured. “When you see the little animal’s face looking at you when it’s innocent and needs help or needs a mother or its injuries tended to — how can you not?” she said. “When I get a baby and it’s been orphaned and it’s been injured, I cry. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t cry. It does hurt my heart when I see animals suffering, it really hurts me.” Ms Williams travels throughout the Bridgetown area on a mission to rescue injured animals. Her passion to rehabilitate wildlife back to their homeland means driving at all hours of the day and night to pick up joeys, possums and other wildlife. “I only get five hours sleep at the most, but what drives me is getting up and feeding the joeys and animals and looking at those little faces,” Ms Williams said. “They wouldn’t survive without Bridgetown Wildlife Rescue being here.” As soon as the community knew there was a wildlife carer in town, Ms Williams started receiving many calls to help injured animals. Veterinary clinics in both Bridgetown and Manjimup also started giving her joeys, possums and birds which needed full-time care. When Ms Williams launched a Facebook group in 2016 asking people to contact her about injured wildlife, she never expected it to evolve into a non-for-profit organisation caring for 27 species of birds and mammals with trained carers who look after animals in their home. “I thought in the beginning I will make up a Facebook page and probably get 30 members — we now reach 101 countries around the world,” she said. The group now has 8000 members and a global audience. To accommodate the ever-growing wildlife in care, Ms Williams moved the shelter to a larger property in Balingup backing onto the Wilga State Forest — one of the locations wildlife can be released in. She said the decision to make the service a not-for-profit in 2020 was the best thing she ever did, as it enabled it to help more animals and bring on sponsors to help pay for ongoing costs such as formula, bedding, vaccines, carer equipment and vet visits. “I was paying for everything out of my pension and most times I was going without a meal so I could feed my animals,” Ms Williams said. People from across the country and beyond sponsor joeys at the shelter, receiving regular updates, an adoption certificate and a photo in return. Some of those sponsoring the animals come from as far away as Sweden, Spain and the US. The South West community also contributes in its own way, including handmade pouches sewn by Balingup resident Wendy Mills. “The generosity of people is astounding,” Ms Williams said. At any one time there can be 45 joeys at the shelter and 15 to 20 with carers who have the animals in their home. The trained carers look after birds, reptiles, bandicoots and possums in their home, with the costs of equipment and feed covered by the rescue shelter. Ms Williams said joeys were released back to the spot they came from when they were well enough to return to the wild. “If they’ve come from a mob we know, they go back to that mob,” Ms Williams said. “All the other species — the birds, the possums — they always get released from where they come from.” Injured animals coming into the shelter are sometimes cared for by members of the public instead of being immediately taken to the shelter, which puts them at risk of dying. It is against the law for members of the public to keep wildlife for more than 72 hours and while people have good intentions caring for injured animals themselves, Ms Williams said they needed specialised care. “They mean well, but they’ve got them to the point where they’re nearly dying,” she said. “They didn’t have to be that way. I always thank them. I’m never rude. I always thank them because they don’t mean to do what they do.” Ms Williams always gives updates on the animal they bought in, whether it dies or comes through and is able to go back into the wild. But she reiterates marsupials are not like pets: they need specialised milk and care — especially the little pinkies. “If you do a pouch check on the side of the road and find a little furless baby, there’s no way that you’re going to be able to save that baby,” Ms Williams said. Pinkies need to be taken to the shelter immediately, which has incubators with mother-like heating and special moisturiser to keep them from drying up due to no longer growing in their mother’s pouch. Carers also work around the clock to save injured wildlife, giving a mother’s touch to orphaned joeys.