The Northern Rivers Wildlife Hospital

A first-class veterinary facility

Dedicated to the critical care, rehabilitation and conservation of wildlife

Found An Injured Animal?

What do I do if I’ve found an injured, sick or orphaned animal?

Click here for a list of several services in the region who can help if you have found a native animal that appears, injured, sick or orphaned.

Safety first!

Animals can scratch or bite. If you need to handle an animal, wear gloves and eye protection. Never approach or attempt to handle a distressed animal unless you are certain you can do so without harm to yourself or the animal!

Opening Hours

The Northern Rivers Wildlife Hospital is currently under construction with the grand opening scheduled for late 2023.

Wildlife Transport Vehicle

Our wildlife transport vehicle is a vital tool in improving outcomes by ensuring our patients receive medical treatment as quickly as possible. The wildlife vehicle transports animals between Brunswick Heads, Kyogle, Ballina and Lismore and is fitted out with vital equipment to ensure the safety and wellbeing of patients while enroute.

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The Northern Rivers region of NSW is one of Australia’s biodiversity hotspots and home to many of the nation’s unique, rare and threatened animals. It is also home to some of the most active wildlife care groups in NSW who urgently need better access to vet care and more support to provide swift and efficient rescue, treatment, rehabilitation, and release of our wildlife.

The threats to wildlife in our region come from many sources, including a changing climate (floods & fires), demographic factors, habitat destruction, land clearing and degradation. Car strikes and predation by introduced species are significant threats.

The Northern Rivers Wildlife Hospital is in the initial stages of building and operating a first class veterinary facility dedicated to the critical care, rehabilitation and conservation of wildlife.

Our veterinary team is led by a highly skilled wildlife veterinarian, who is capable of the highest quality clinical treatment, and also of student training, research and program implementation.

The NRWH facility accommodates short-term rehabilitation of sick and injured animals and will scale to accommodate long-term rehabilitation of certain species to reduce the workload of existing local carers.

Our hospital is centrally located on a 2.5-hectare site at Wollongbar in NSW, specifically chosen to service the entire Northern Rivers region (over 20,000 square kilometres and 7 Local Government Areas), to make it as accessible as possible for the region's expected animal caseload.

In addition to providing veterinary care to assist a very strained network of wildlife carers and provide wildlife with the expert veterinarian services they need, NRWH will play a significant role in community preparedness and resilience by becoming a local disease surveillance site as part of the national Sentinel Clinic Wildlife Disease Surveillance program.

Our unique Australian wildlife requires specialised veterinary care. Local veterinarians may not have the skills, resources or time to provide excellent care for rescued wildlife. Local wildlife carers struggle to access specialised veterinary care for rescued wildlife when they need it. NRWH fills this skill gap in collaboration with our strategic partners.

Evidence shows that early triage assessment and treatment by a specialist veterinary team results in better animal welfare outcomes and improved release rates. Our permanent and centrally located wildlife hospital in the Northern Rivers helps improve outcomes for wildlife and their continuing survival in the region.

Rehabilitation

The NRWH will have several purposes built, state of the art, rehabilitation facilities that allow patients in care to regain optimal health and fitness in preparation for their release. The NRWH recognised the gaps in locally available rehabilitation facilities for certain species and has built their facilities around this need. Our facilities include specialised flight aviaries to cater to small, medium and large passerines, freshwater bird aviaries with specialised ponds, freshwater turtle ponds and a climate controlled “dry dock” ward, a 30-meter circular raptor flight, a 15 meter smaller circular flight aviary, a macropod recovery barn and several multispecies aviaries.