Australian volunteers fight deadly disease threatening wombats

By Cordelia Hsu

MEGALONG VALLEY, Australia (Reuters) - Armed with medication to treat mange, conservationist Melina Budden quietly trails a wombat called Hope who is infected with the skin disease through the forest in southeastern Australia.

Budden, who founded the Blue Mountains Wombat Conservation Group in 2020, leads a team of several dozen volunteers who are trying to protect the wombat, a marsupial unique to Australia.

Mange, which is caused by parasitic mites and is a major cause of wombat mortality, threatens the survival of the species as climate change poses other dangers to the emblematic animal, Budden said.

"It's a very slow and painful death, so it will, in 100% of cases wipe them out (if left untreated)," she told Reuters.

Mange affects most of Australia's native mammals and can also infect livestock and immunocompromised humans, making it a "biosecurity issue", she said.

The reliance on community groups and the lack of long-term solutions highlight the need for more research and funding, she added.

Climate change is also a significant concern, with the increasing number of floods, droughts and bushfires in Australia eroding the animals' resilience and making it harder for them to fight off diseases such as mange.

Tracking and treating as many as 200 wombats per week is labour intensive, and often the same wombats need to be sprayed every year. Hope is now in her third year of treatment.

"I feel like we're just on a merry-go-round, but you can't stop," Budden said. "You can't just let something die a very slow and painful death and do nothing."

(Reporting by Cordelia Hsu; Editing by Alasdair Pal and Helen Popper)