Training for the Worst to Deliver the Best

NRWH Joins Wildlife Emergency Response Drill

Recently, our Northern Rivers Wildlife Hospital (NRWH) / Vitality Vetcare veterinary team stepped into the thick of a simulated bushfire zone as part of a regional wildlife emergency response training exercise. The event, hosted by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), brought together members of the Northern Rivers Wildlife Emergency Response Team (NR-WERT) and the Northern Rivers Wildlife Network (NRWN) to rehearse a coordinated response to a large-scale wildlife disaster.

Our role? To run a fully operational field hospital at the simulated incident site. The NRWH patient transport van was transformed into a mobile clinic, packed with the essential equipment needed for on-ground triage – including a portable anaesthetic machine and everything required to assess and treat wildlife in the field.

Rescue teams were sent out across the training grounds to locate and retrieve “injured” animals — in this case, realistic stuffed toys, each with detailed injury reports. These mock patients were then transported to our veterinary team for treatment. As part of the drill, Dr Megan Kearney and veterinary nurse Hollie Simpson demonstrated the use of anaesthetic protocols in the field, working on a “wallaby joey” to simulate real-world treatment procedures.

While no real animals were harmed in this training, the learnings were serious and significant. Exercises like this are crucial in helping our network prepare for real emergencies, by building collaboration between organisations, testing equipment, and identifying any gaps in protocols and planning.

We’re incredibly grateful to IFAW for putting together such a valuable and hands-on day, and to all the passionate wildlife carers and responders who took part. Together, we’re building a stronger, faster, and more effective response system to help protect our precious native wildlife when disasters strike.