Recycled ACT election corflutes are helping wombats combat mange

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Once a prominent feature on roadsides and pathways, corflute signs featuring the faces of former ACT election candidates will soon be put underground to help local wombats overcome disease.

Marg Peachey, president of ACT Wildlife, said some people might be surprised to discover the corflutes were being recycled and would be placed in wombat burrows to help combat sarcoptic mange.

"We are struggling here in the ACT because we seem to have a bit of an endemic problem with [mange]," Ms Peachey said.

The corflutes will be used as burrow flaps and attached milk bottle lids will be filled with cydectin, which is used most commonly to treat mites on cattle.

When the wombat enters their burrow through the corflute flap, the liquid in the milk bottle lid will run down their back.

According to Ms Peachey, mange is caused by a mite that buries itself under a wombat's skin.

"What is so nasty about it is that it just ruins their skin, and their hair falls [out] and it gets crusty and horrible, and they end up going blind and deaf.

"We think that [mange] probably came in with foxes who went down the burrows and spread it.

"It's a zoonotic disease, so we can catch it as well — we've got to be super careful."

Dee Harmer, secretary of ACT Wildlife, said the Wombat Mange Management Organisation in Victoria had a successful program that involved treating the animals using the burrow flap method.

She said the initial design called for ice-cream lids — but as tempting as it was, ACT Wildlife's crew were not prepared to eat countless tubs.

"So we were looking at having to purchase corflute but the same weekend we had the election, so it came to mind that we should be re-using those," Ms Harmer said.

"We rang around the political parties and we've managed to pick up quite a few, so already we have made 230 flaps."

Ms Harmer said they hoped to install all the flaps before Christmas and they already had more than 50 volunteers willing to visit various burrows around Murrumbidgee.

ACT Wildlife spends time rehabilitating young wombats and releasing them into the wild, but they cannot do this unless mange is under control.

"We want to start clearing areas of mange so we can release the orphaned wombats that we have raised who have come to us because their mothers have been hit by cars," Ms Peachey said.

"We've been trying to tackle the mange problem so we can look at releasing some of the wombats that we raise in the ACT instead of having to ship them over to NSW."

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