TRANSCRIPT
Sarcoptic mange disease, more commonly known as scabies in humans, is a deadly parasitic disease caused by microscopic mites which burrow under the skin. It's estimated to be present in about 90 per cent of wombat populations.
Being great burrowers, the Australian population is especially vulnerable because burrows provide ideal environments for mites to survive and spread.
And for the past nine years Toby - also known as The Wombat Guy - has been on a mission to help as many as he can.
"I grew up (laughs) chasing wombats around, trying to get as close as I could to animals, and when I was really young, maybe seven or eight, my Dad took me on a bush walk out here. And we saw a wombat off in the distance I got to maybe a metre or so away, and I sort of made it my mission to see how close I could sneak up to this wombat. And I got to maybe a metre or so away and it sort of looked up at me and it noticed me, and I looked down at it. And I saw this blood just coming straight out of these cracks in its eyes. And so I screamed and I ran back to Dad and the wombat, you know, ran the opposite way, straight down its burrow. I now know that that wombat had mange. But I think that was the moment that really hooked me in."
This year alone, Toby has treated 33 wombats in the New South Wales Hawkesbury region where he grew up.
Kristie Newton from the Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service known as WIRES says the disease spreads quickly and nearly 40 per cent of wombat related calls they receive relate to wombats with mange.
"Sarcoptic mange affects more than 100 million species around the world, including humans, when we get it we actually call it scabies but it's not too bad and ask we just treat it with a cream. Unfortunately, in wombats, the parasitic mite borrows under their skin and lays eggs. Now, when the eggs hatch, it actually causes their skin to get really thick and crack open. They get very, very itchy, it's very painful. And when it gets worse, they actually lose their ability to see and hear and eventually if it's left untreated, they will die of this disease."
The Director of Wombat Protection Society of Australia, Marie Wynan, agrees, saying their close proximity to each other contributes to high rates of transmission.
"Often, they are forced to get closer together due to habitat destruction and smaller lots being broken up. So, they’ve just got smaller areas to live on and becoming more concentrated. And also, of course, climate change, all these floods and fires. They have to move to a different area and they have to congregate like closer together. So that's a big thing of reason why it can spread so rapidly across the whole population."
Ms Newton says once a wombat is infected with mange, they stop breeding and it only takes three months for them to succumb to the disease.
"It's absolutely heartbreaking to see. The quicker a wombat with mange gets treated, the higher the possibility of them surviving. So, it's really important that we're able to spread the awareness about this disease, so people can recognise mange in wombats in the wild and report it to their local wildlife organisation or WIRES. "
A treatment used to control mites in dogs is now being applied to wombats. The University of the Sunshine Coast's Dr Kate Mounsey says Bravecto - a relatively new drug - can be used to treat wombats with the proper surveillance and monitoring.
"So Bravecto is an insecticide and it's something that people might use on their dogs and cats for tick control, flea and tick control for example. And it's recently been re-purposed to see if it's useful against sarcoptic mange in wombats."
This method, while highly effective, often involves chasing down individual wombats with a net and administering treatment. It's something Toby, The Wombat Guy, is no stranger to.
"One part to that is actually physically catching the wombat, spraying its wounds to make sure they don't get infected. But another part to that, which is not quite as interesting as the videos I put up of me running around with a net, is something called burrow flaps. So that's where you put essentially a doggy door over the sick wombat's burrow, and that passively applies treatment for you."
And it's not the only option. Dr Mounsey notes free-roaming wombats aren't always the most compliant of patients, and says researchers need to consider other drugs and treatment methods.
"It's extremely challenging. And really, we don't want to introduce stress into that animal. And we know that the mange prevalence in some areas can be quite high, so, it's simply not feasible to individually catch each wombat with a net and directly administer a treatment. We really want treatments that can be delivered in the population without having to directly interact with that animal."
Kristie Newton says one to three doses of Bravecto can control mange but stresses it's by no means a cure for the parasitic disease.
"So, there isn’t a cure yet for mange because we can't really kill all the mites, so they might get reinfected with mange but Bravecto should keep the mange free for about three months. If they do go down a burrow with live mite, they might get reinfected and we may have to treat them again. But we try and do large population treatments so that we get rid of the mites in the entire area. So, hopefully the population get a break and don't get reinfected."
And Katja Gutwein of Mange Management Inc says it's important to find a permanent solution.
“It's a step in the right direction. We do have a lot of success. Treating wombats with mange, with Bravecto, but it's not necessarily a one-off, treatment, which is what we really would need, you know to get on top of mange in wombats.”
The Wombat Protection Society of Australia says it's trialling a more permanent treatment using the chemical Cydectin and says it's had promising results.
