Connection with Wildlife

Since a very early age, I’ve always been delighted and distracted by being around animals. More than twenty years ago I faced the tragic reality of injured wildlife when we moved to the bush. Their struggle ignited in me a need for personal action. I joined the local wildlife group learning how to rescue and care for orphaned and injured native wildlife.

I will never forget the first day of the macropod course, the absolute wonderment about these animals combined with the stimulation from learning. I felt connected with that big complex world of nature and a realisation I could help.

Picking up my first joey remains, to this day, a treasured memory milestone. Driving out with a mix of excitement and fear and despite my training, a ‘I-have-no-idea-what-I-am-doing’ voice going off in my head.

Little Bethany made her mark on my heart over the fourteen months I cared for her, but two weeks after Bethany was released, I found what was left of her in the forest.

Accepting the reality of Bethany’s death and what animals face in this human-filled world wasn’t easy, and though the grief stayed, I was able to prepare my mind and heart for doing it again.

I am constantly reminded of how small I am in a complex world. The delight and privilege to be able to give wildlife a safe space, help them grow and recover, and then reconnect with nature is daunting, and at the same time very, very special.

For me caring for wildlife is a fundamental form of connection with nature. It grounds me, re-balances, and provides stillness in the frantic spinning of the human world.

It’s a reminder about mutuality between human and nature and its tied with a thread of destiny.

2016 / 2017 were tough years and made me incredibly self-aware of the mental well-being of people, especially those with whom I share a connection. I cared for and tried to help a person who meant the world to me, as they fought an intense battle of mental instability and worth to this world.

These years were a time of confronting rawness and intensity which leads you to question, and desperately try to articulate, what is real and important in life. Not for the mere purpose of just having conversations but because the consequences of not hearing why there was value in still being around was actual life and death.

In the end, I lost this individual, my Dad. He was the entire sum of my family and it took some time to come back up for air and reconnect with life. This intensively life changing experience spurned a sense of urgency to be more self aware of my own mental strength and wellness and also those of others.

I had seen the fragility but strength of the mind and it scares me. I started to notice what my fellow wildlife volunteers did to respect and care for their physical and mental wellbeing. I started to be aware that the factors of this service which placed my fellow volunteers at high risk were then further compounded because they ignored or didn’t care about their own mental and physical wellness. I started to consider how could our community become stronger, to help each other as we help wildlife?

It was time for me to raise my voice. Something has to change. There are silences and myths which it’s time to break. The urgency to do something needed to translate into action and Two Green Threads was born. The people in this unrecognised sector give away so much of themselves. It’s time we had resources which enable us to keep doing this service, for longer, in a more healthy state.