Community
20 March, 2026
Wildlife warriors on the same page
Dr Stephen Van Mil and Peter Stevens are on the same page when it comes to wildlife recovery. Volunteers are important but moving forward government funding and a national framework will be crucial.
Dr Stephen Van Mil and Peter Stevens are on the same page when it comes to wildlife recovery.
Volunteers are important but moving forward government funding and a national framework will be crucial.
Wildlife recovery is a business and needs to be treated as such.
Dr Van Mil is founder, director and CEO of Wildlife Recovery Australia and the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital.
He was in the region last week as part of a national tour of the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital’s mobile hospital, Matilda.
Matilda is a state-of-the-art unit designed to bring hospital-grade care directly to native animals.
Matilda left Sutton Forest bound for Parliament House in Canberra.
Dr Van Mil was planning to use the Canberra visit to promote his organisation’s wildlife recovery work and to push for funding in this year’s Federal budget.
The statistics are astounding.
Since Matilda became operational five years ago, it has treated 11,000 animals at an average cost of $550 per animal.
The mobile unit hasn’t had a need to travel.
Flooding events and tropical cyclones impacting Northern NSW has kept Matilda close to home.
But it’s ready to roll when needed – be it bushfires, floods or mass strandings.
Dr Van Mil says three billion animals were killed during the catastrophic 2019-2020 bushfires.
Matilda could have made a difference but was still under construction.
The national tour will see Matilda head from Canberra to Tasmania, back to Kangaroo Island and through to Perth, Margaret River and back to Sydney via the Murray Valley.
Locally, the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital is now partnering with the Southern Highlands Wildlife Sanctuary to establish a wildlife hospital at the sanctuary’s Spring Hill site in Bundanoon.
The hospital will be one of a number of “centres of excellence” around the state and will be manned by staff working under the auspices of the Byron Bay operation.
Peter Lewis from the Southern Highlands Wildlife Sanctuary said talks had commenced with Dr Van Mil late last year.
“I don’t think there are two guys that are more like-minded,” he told The Southern Wire.
He said “strong partnerships” such as the one between the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital and the Southern Highlands Wildlife Sanctuary were the “way of the future” in terms of wildlife recovery.
He said there was a need to bring groups together and the partnership between the Byron Bay and Southern Highlands organisations made perfect sense in terms of what they are hoping to achieve.
The Southern Highlands Wildlife Sanctuary is currently leasing a site at Spring Hill in Bunadoon, which it hopes to purchase mid-year if the funds are available.
Mr Lewis described the $3.5 million needed as a “drop in the ocean” in terms of what the government spends elsewhere.
He said $7 million in funding would knock the sanctuary into complete shape by 2027.
“If we don’t spend that we won’t have koalas,” he said.
The Southern Highlands Wildlife Sanctuary was founded by Mr Lewis and ‘Wombat Man’ John Creighton following a talk about a mangy wombat in Mr Lewis’ backyard.
It is dedicated to the research, care, rehabilitation and conservation of native Australian wildlife with a particular focus on the critically endangered koala but extending to other species including wombats, quolls and sugar gliders.
Read More: Southern Highlands, Bundanoon, Sutton Forest