National Zoo and Aquarium and Wombat Rescue rush to save wombats from sarcoptic mange

Wombat Rescue founder Yolandi Vermaak estimates around 70 per cent of the species in the ACT suffer from sarcoptic mange, an infestation she says has a 100 per cent death rate.

National Zoo and Aquarium wildlife manager Shelley Russell said she was shocked when she saw an infected wombat.

"[Sarcoptic mange] burrows into the skin of the wombat, and then it just breeds and breeds and breeds until the wombat's skin is just this thick awfulness of mite," she said.

"Eventually it just covers their whole body, and they go blind and they just can't function and just slowly die."

The itch caused by the mites leads the marsupial to scratch incessantly, causing skin damage and creating bloody, open wounds. They become too sick to forage for food or water.

Maggots enter wounds and eat the wombats alive, who will Ms Vermaak said would eventually suffer from organ failure.

"The suffering that these animals are enduring is imaginable," Ms Vermaak said.

Cydectin - the treatment for sarcoptic mange - is expensive and takes months of treatments to work.

About half the attempts to medicate the wombats through burrow flaps are unsuccessful.

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The National Zoo and Aquarium has partnered with Wombat Rescue to fund the medicine.

They are partly using money raised through donation boxes which memorialise former long-term resident Winnie the wombat, who lived at the zoo for 27 years.

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