A man has quit his job to save 'zombie-like' wombats from a deadly parasite.
Toby Boorne, 25, has taken it upon himself and quit his job in marketing to save as many wombats as possible from mange.
Mange, a disease caused by a parasitic mite, is invasive to Australia and has been wreaking havoc on the wombats.
Toby, from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia said: "Mange is an introduced parasite.
"Wombats have no defense against it and it's causing them to go locally extinct in some areas."
Mange causes the marsupials to lose their hair and develop skin lesions, eventually killing them.
Toby hunts down the wombats with a large net and treats them with cattle soak to rid them of the mange.
The sick animals are reported to him by locals in his area and he goes down to find them.
He said: "They're reported by community members and local landowners, they call me and say, I've got wombats here and they look like zombies.
"Then I just drive down the valley and try to spot them."
Toby, who's also a photographer and filmmaker, quit his digital marketing job in August to focus on the animals.
He was able to do so after he raised 900k AU$ in a crowdfunding campaign.
Despite still working, Toby was able to save 36 wombats in 2023 alone and hopes to expand his operation now.
He said: When I first started it was a couple of wombats in our place, I bought the meds from Amazon and helped my neighbours.
"Before long, the whole area knew me as the wombat guy.
"I was working from Monday to Thursday and then Friday to Sunday it was just wombats from 9 AM to 10 PM.
The wombats require treatment every week for around six weeks to be cured and must be left in their habitat.
This makes Toby's job extremely time-consuming as he must seek the animals out each time he wants to treat them.
He said: "Wombats get stressed really easily and catching them with my net already scares them enough.
"If I took them out of their habitat they would literally keel over and die."
Toby has been working at this for the last ten years, but his interest in helping them started at just seven years old.
He said: "Dad took me for a bush walk at seven and I saw one. I said: 'Dad, I'm going to sneak up on it.
"It was the closest I had ever been to a wild animal, it suddenly turned around and had blood and pus coming from its eyes.
"I found out it had mange and I could cure it and became instantly obsessed, that was why it looked like a zombie, that was why it was out during the day."
Despite how passionate he is about the issue, Toby says there is still not enough support for the issue.
He said: "In my area, it's just me. I'm the only one but the more wombats I can save and the more hearts I can turn, the better.
"Bigger and better ways of saving wombats are coming."
Toby Boorne, 25, has taken it upon himself and quit his job in marketing to save as many wombats as possible from mange.
Mange, a disease caused by a parasitic mite, is invasive to Australia and has been wreaking havoc on the wombats.
Toby, from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia said: "Mange is an introduced parasite.
"Wombats have no defense against it and it's causing them to go locally extinct in some areas."
Mange causes the marsupials to lose their hair and develop skin lesions, eventually killing them.
Toby hunts down the wombats with a large net and treats them with cattle soak to rid them of the mange.
The sick animals are reported to him by locals in his area and he goes down to find them.
He said: "They're reported by community members and local landowners, they call me and say, I've got wombats here and they look like zombies.
"Then I just drive down the valley and try to spot them."
Toby, who's also a photographer and filmmaker, quit his digital marketing job in August to focus on the animals.
He was able to do so after he raised 900k AU$ in a crowdfunding campaign.
Despite still working, Toby was able to save 36 wombats in 2023 alone and hopes to expand his operation now.
He said: When I first started it was a couple of wombats in our place, I bought the meds from Amazon and helped my neighbours.
"Before long, the whole area knew me as the wombat guy.
"I was working from Monday to Thursday and then Friday to Sunday it was just wombats from 9 AM to 10 PM.
The wombats require treatment every week for around six weeks to be cured and must be left in their habitat.
This makes Toby's job extremely time-consuming as he must seek the animals out each time he wants to treat them.
He said: "Wombats get stressed really easily and catching them with my net already scares them enough.
"If I took them out of their habitat they would literally keel over and die."
Toby has been working at this for the last ten years, but his interest in helping them started at just seven years old.
He said: "Dad took me for a bush walk at seven and I saw one. I said: 'Dad, I'm going to sneak up on it.
"It was the closest I had ever been to a wild animal, it suddenly turned around and had blood and pus coming from its eyes.
"I found out it had mange and I could cure it and became instantly obsessed, that was why it looked like a zombie, that was why it was out during the day."
Despite how passionate he is about the issue, Toby says there is still not enough support for the issue.
He said: "In my area, it's just me. I'm the only one but the more wombats I can save and the more hearts I can turn, the better.
"Bigger and better ways of saving wombats are coming."
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FunTranscript
00:00 [wind]
00:02 When I pushed him with the plastic he just sits.
00:13 But I am still mindful he's still a while.
00:16 There he goes.
00:18 Hey, hey, hey. It's alright.
00:27 [birds chirping]
00:30 [lion roar]
00:56 Settle, settle.
01:23 Hey, settle.
01:26 My name is Toby, but most people know me as the wombat guy.
01:44 I save wombats from mange.
01:47 Mange is an introduced parasite that burrows beneath a wombat's skin
01:52 and slowly eats them alive.
01:55 Without human intervention it is 100% fatal for wombats.
02:00 That's where I come in.
02:02 I've been treating mange in the Hawkesbury since 2015.
02:05 Locals simply report sick wombats
02:08 and I come over with a big net to give them medicine.
02:11 Settle, settle.
02:13 I then follow up treatment once a week
02:15 for as long as it takes for the wombat to be totally mange-free.
02:20 It's a lot of work, but there's nothing more rewarding
02:23 than watching these zombie wombats regrow their hair,
02:26 regain their vision, and go back to being nocturnal.
02:31 Mange is curable, and I want to help cure every single mangey wombat
02:35 in my area of the Hawkesbury.
02:38 But I need your help.
02:40 Although I'm grateful to have received some funding over the years,
02:44 90% of the medicine has been paid for out of my own pocket.
02:49 It can cost hundreds of dollars to cure a wombat with mange,
02:52 and in 2021 alone I treated 27 of them.
02:56 That figure doesn't include petrol, wildlife cameras,
03:00 or even the time I spend in the field.
03:03 And to be clear, I don't get paid to do this.
03:06 I volunteer every second of my free time to this cause
03:09 because of genuine, relentless passion.
03:12 If you're in a position to spare a few dollars,
03:15 it would go a bloody long way to help buy medicine and equipment,
03:18 to help save the wombats of Macdonald Valley,
03:21 Webbs Creek, and Lower Portland.
03:24 And if you're not in a position to donate, that's fine too.
03:27 A quick share of this fundraiser would help me a lot.
03:31 Thank you so much for your time.
03:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]