Feeding time: A Terra Mater Wildlife Shelter team member drops off hay bales to stranded animals in Moama.
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“Heartbreaking” was the word Tania Begg used to describe the first time she dropped off food to between 50 and 80 stranded kangaroos and wallabies in Moama.
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Ms Begg and her partner, Sam, from Terra Mater Wildlife Shelter found out about the animals through a local landowner.
Since then, the pair has been working tirelessly to take food to the animals.
Ms Begg said the animals appeared to be calmer than the first time they saw them.
“It was heartbreaking to see them the first time because they had just about eaten everything on the island,” Ms Begg said.
“During that first visit we could see that quite a few had died, probably from a combination of things such as stress and starvation.”
The feeding mission has been no small feat.
The journey to reach the isolated animals takes up to an hour by boat.
The duo completed the first delivery about three weeks ago when they dropped off 30 bales of hay, the equivalent of four or five boatloads.
Last week, they dropped off a further 12 bales.
Boatloads: Terra Mater Wildlife rescuers use two boats to drop off the hay bales.
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The pair transports the hay in a ‘mothership’, with a smaller boat towing behind.
At a certain point, the mothership can travel no further because there are too many trees around.
The pair then switches to the smaller boat, making trips back and forth from the mothership to fill up.
The Terra Mater Wildlife Shelter already owned a ‘tinny’ for rescue operations but it was not large enough to carry the amount of hay that was needed.
The shelter received an emergency grant from Wildlife Victoria to assist with buying a bigger boat (now known as the mothership).
Ms Begg said the boat they purchased was second-hand and required a number of repairs, which they had had to pay for out of their own pockets.
“It’s a big job, but fortunately Sam is handy on the tools,” she said.
While the task of dropping food may sound simple, Ms Begg said rigorous planning had to be undertaken to ensure the journey was safe.
“Initially we had a number of talks with the NSW environmental department to figure out the best approach,” she said.
The duo expects to keep dropping off the food into next year, depending on how long it takes for the water to recede and for the animals to gain access to more land.
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