June 17th, 2025The story of Hepburn Wildlife Shelter
The story of Hepburn Wildlife Shelter started in 2005 when founders Jon and Gayle purchased an 11-hectare bushland property adjoining the Hepburn Regional Park specifically for the running of the wildlife shelter and planned to establish a permanent and lasting treatment and care facility for wildlife in the region.
From there they put everything they had into wildlife care: income, time, personal space, scientific training and significant emotional investment.
As the shelter continued to grow it became apparent that caring for myriad injured and orphaned native wildlife that found themselves at the shelter would become a 24/7 commitment for Jon and Gayle.
With no available government funding, the shelter grew with support from generous donors and volunteers from throughout the region.
Today Hepburn Wildlife Shelter houses an average of 100 animals (wildlife) in care at any one time and in addition to those it receives around 1000 wildlife calls to respond to each year.
Many of the patients require intensive care and treatments and some small orphans need feeding every two hours.
A typical day is dominated by the regular rounds of feeding (and toileting of very young ones) and cleaning but at any time this routine can be interrupted by a call to action to attend to a diverse and often shocking variety of animals in distress.
Calls vary from dehydrated lizards, baby birds fallen out of nests and bats discovered in roof spaces, to the horrors of mangy wombats with flyblown wounds, kangaroos caught up in fences or fallen down mineshafts.
Then there are animals of all varieties involved in grisly road traumas with severed or broken limbs, concussion and bloody wounds – even in the worst cases, there are always orphaned pouch young to consider.
At the current level of support for their work Gayle and Jon must provide the vast majority of the funds for the care work at the Hepburn Wildlife Shelter, as well as the expertise and the physical work.
Additional volunteer help at the shelter is essential to the operation in order to keep up with the workload. Issues such as drought, bushfires, wildlife culling, prescribed burning of wildlife habitat, residential and commercial development and increased traffic on the roads all contribute to the workload. Fortunately, everyone enjoys their work immensely!
Dr Marita McGuirk will return with her column on July 14. If you would like to donate or volunteer, or just find out more, head to www.hepburnwildlifeshelter.org Article proudly sponsored by The Local Publishing Group
