A Christmas Possum Tale: Hope for Wildlife in the Northern Rivers

As the Northern Rivers Wildlife Hospital edges closer to its opening, we’re taking a moment to reflect on what this milestone means—not just for our community but for the countless animals who share this region with us.

Madeleine Faught, our Board Chair, has written a heartfelt story that captures the challenges faced by our native wildlife and the hope that a dedicated wildlife hospital brings. Told from the perspective of a possum, this tale sheds light on the urgent need for action to protect and care for the creatures we share this land with.

Below is Madeleine’s story, ‘A Possum Tale’.

The vote was ‘in’, and I ended up chosen to speak out for the biodiversity of the animal and bird species that call the Northern Rivers region ‘our home’. This is an honour, of course. One that I take seriously, particularly as this is a very serious subject I need to talk about – our collective well-being and capacity to survive.

My species has called this region our habitat long before humans started recording our presence here (or getting angry at us for getting into their roofs and making noise). We co-existed with the other animals, and there was an abundance of native foods for us. Our lives were survival-oriented, but without much stress.

When human populations settled into our habitats, things changed. Not so much at first as there weren’t all that many of this two-legged mammal. They were a curiosity for us and provided us possums (and others) with all sorts of new opportunities for food, and shelter.

Overall, this sharing of country between us worked pretty well. There were always a few fatalities from getting too close to humans or their various vehicles…or a farmer’s trap. But we still managed to live on.

This story has now grown in alignment with the increasing number of human settlements, their roads, and trouble-making machines with wheels. These roads do not take into account our individual habitat areas where we forage, many of which require us to cross their roads.

This is where the story makes us very sad. We have lost so many of our friends and family on these roads. We don’t move all that fast. Cars and trucks do. What is even sadder is that some of these confrontations result in one of our species lying next to the road; not killed outright, but seriously injured. I can’t talk anymore about this as it makes me cry…

What we genuinely need, and have needed for a very long time, is a hospital that is devoted to taking care of these unfortunate confrontations, giving us a chance to heal properly and survive!

It makes all of us, collectively, extremely grateful that such a hospital is, as we speak, being built. Right here in the middle of what is prime habitat for quite a few of us. Brilliant. If we were able to applaud, we would.

We do have a favour to ask of you, though. We need you to care enough about us and our ‘right to life’ and well-being by supporting this new hospital initiative. There are a few different ways to do this. Every donation contributes to the capacity for this beautiful region that we natives and humans call ‘home’.