Our Actions in Natural Disasters

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During disasters, WDRR activates and mobilises to areas that need assistance. We work with Local Councils and local groups to provide wildlife responses during disasters. If you have wildlife that need assistance during disasters, please call us on 0402 307 988.

A disaster can be anything from natural events such as wildfire, flood, cyclones or droughts and other events that impact wildlife communities such as heatwaves. 

Being prepared during these events is critical for each of us, but it is just as important for wildlife. We are sometime limited in our responses during an event for our own safety, however post-disaster event there is several ways we can help wildlife.

It is important to understand help is there for us during disaster events too, your local Council’s take on this responsibility and the best place to seek information is through their dashboards. You can find these by doing a Google search for ‘{your local council’s name] + Dashboard’. This will bring up your local Council’s Dashboard. 

The link above will take you to the Qld Gov website which has a list of all Qld Council regions and a link to their dashboards.

As a property owner, after an event WDRR ask that you check your properties for injured wildlife – when safe to do so. Wildlife may come down with trees during heavy rain and winds and wildlife seek shelter anywhere they can during wildfires. 

After an event’s initial impact, WDRR can assist communities to provide recovery options for environmental areas and habitat that has been impacted by the disaster. This could include the installation of habitat such as nest boxes or ground logs or assisting in stabilising waterway areas that have had vegetation die off’s due to flooding. We have a small number of resources that may be mobilised to restore this habitat.

WDRR volunteers can assist in inspections after the event and assist in looking for wildlife called ‘Blackwalks’, these must be established quickly after a disaster. 

Check your property for injured wildlife and damage to environmental spaces and reach out to groups for assistance.

Up-cycle any downed vegetation from high winds

• Browse (branches with leaf) can be used by carers as food
• Larger branches and hollows can be used as enclosure furnishings from climbing branches for possums and gliders, forks for koalas, rough and smooth branches for birds, larger logs for ground species.