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 My name is Toby, but most people know me as the Wombat Guy.
00:05 I save wombats from mange.
00:08 Mange is an introduced parasite that burrows beneath a wombat's skin
00:13 and slowly eats them alive.
00:15 Without human intervention, it is 100% fatal for wombats.
00:20 [Music]
00:50 It's a lot of work, but there's nothing more rewarding
00:54 than watching these zombie wombats regrow their hair,
00:57 regain their vision, and go back to being nocturnal.
01:01 [Music]