Southern Koala & Echidna Rescue
SKER are a wildlife charity in Adelaide who’s aim is to help any of Australia’s native fauna.We spent a week with the team there hoping to capture some of the amazing work that the volunteers and staff do. For more information about their work you can visit their website here
SKER has a number of animals in care and one of the truly remarkable things about what they do is that they manage to release the majority of the wildlife they bring in. We were so thrilled to be able to capture the story of Glamis from beginning to end and personally I love this video the most because it shows the breadth of what they do and just how intricate the team at SKER is.
Grumpy Granny was the name given to one of the koalas which had previously been released by SKER. Unfortunately this time she was brought in, she was severely dehydrated and malnourished and so in this case, the kindest thing was to put her to sleep. It shows the dedication the team at SKER have for what they do that all they want to do is minimise any pain or suffering in an animal.
Collecting browse for the animals is time consuming and SKER has an ongoing project to set up what they called a "browse supermarket" by cutting back large areas of overgrown bush and restoring native gums for harvesting in 5-10 years time.
Late one night a call came in from a member of public who had hit an echidna on the road. One of the volunteers at SKER rushed to collect the animal which was brought to the centre. Echidna are notoriously difficult to work with as they go into torpor when they're stressed and exhibit many of the indicators of death. This was a very challenging animal to work on and a difficult film to make as a result
King Chemmy was picked up when a member of public spotted a koala with blood on its hand. The team at SKER headed out to collect the animal and bring him in. When he was checked over it was clear he'd damaged two of his claws and his thumb and would need an operation to fix him up.
Educating the next generation of environmental pioneers is crucial to the success of conservation projects and so SKER occassional have visits from young members of the local schools to help with animal husbandry and to learn about the work that goes on at SKER.