Medications for Burnt Animals
Please remember that many medications are required to be prescribed by your veterinarian for an individual animal by law. It is strongly recommended that you involve your veterinarian in the treatment of burnt wildlife.

• Antibiotics are required for a minimum of 7 days, and usually two weeks while the necrotic tissue is debrided.

• Amoxil/Clavulox is suitable for kangaroos and Brushtail possums. It has an excellent spectrum against skin bacteria (such as Staph) likely to invade the wounds.

• Baytril, by oral or injectable routes, is suitable for koalas, ringtail possums, reptiles.

• Pain relief is recommended. Metacam, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, has been used with success. Ensure that the animal is well-hydrated with use of both antibiotics and antiinflammatories. Pain relief is required until the skin reforms – at this point the nerves are protected. Each case needs to be assessed individually.

• Vitamins are open for debate. Stressed koalas benefit greatly from B group vitamins. However, an animal that has been starving will also benefit. Vitamin A is required in making healthy skin. Ideally the vitamins will be found in the diet offered.

• Sedation is recommended for the first week of bandage changes as the dressing changes are very painful. As healing progresses, the animal may no longer need sedation. Full general anaesthesia may be required to change the dressings of possums and birds. Please keep the welfare of the animal in mind – if the dressings are painful, seek veterinary assistance for sedation or anaesthesia.

Progression of Burns
It can be difficult to know what to expect from a burn. However, we need to understand that all wounds follow the three stages of healing:

• Inflammatory stage (day 1 – day 5) where removal of dead tissue & resolution of infection occur.

• Proliferative phase (day 5 – day 14) where granulation tissue covers the wound

• Remodelling phase (day 7 – day 28) where skin covers the wound.

So in the first week, we see a weepy, infected wound, with lots of discharge (necrotic tissue). Bandage changes are required daily.

By day 7 – 10, the eschar (burnt dead tissue) lifts. It may only be at this point that the severity of the burn becomes apparent. A proportion of animals may require euthanasia at this point due to extensive damage to underlying structures. Bandage changes can now be done on alternate days.

By day 14 in a well-treated partial thickness burn, granulation should have begun and some areas of the burn may already have intact skin. Nails are often only starting to fall off at this point. The nail bed is very sensitive and needs to be covered in a bandage while it heals – which may easily take a month or so.

If there is any delay in progress of a burn by 14 – 21 days, the burn should be reassessed: is it infected, is it drying out?

Equipment to Treat Burns 0.9% sterile saline Tissue scissors Silvazine Betadine 1% or Chlorhexidine gluconate scrub (not alcohol-based) Melonin Paraffin gauze Cotton gauze, cotton buds, cotton makeup pads Basin to hold water for cleaning Bandages: crepe bandages, Vetrap, Coplus Cotton mittens have been made by some carers

Rehabilitation
A pre-release assessment by a veterinarian is recommended – this may involve examination of the healing areas, taking blood, identification of the animal if permitted, etc.

The suitability of both the koala and the environment needs to be considered. Fires differ in their severity: a crown fire needs many months of regeneration before it can sustain life; a grass fire or low-level fire may be suitable to return animals to much sooner. However, ringtail possums are dependent on undergrowth so they do not need to go to the ground (where the predators are), and thus burnt areas may not be suitable for this species for some time.

Placing animals in adjacent and unburned areas may affect the resident wildlife there and serious consideration needs to be given to this undertaking. Returning the animal to its original location and ideally, within its family group would be the goal to aim towards.

If animals are to be translocated, then it is important that they do not carry disease to the new location; eg; Chlamydia and koalas.

Epicornic growth is thought to be less toxic than mature growth and can be used as food – however, overstocking reduces the amount of epicornic growth and may affect how the tree recovers over the longer-term.

Consultation with government agencies responsible for the land is required prior to release. It would be tragic to release an animal only for it to be injured by heavy machinery engaged in rehabilitation of the area present for salvage logging, road building or further back-burning.

Case studies on release

Changes to a population of common ringtail possums (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) after bushfire  –   B. G. Russell, Barbara Smith and M. L. Augee – Wildlife Research 30(4) 389 - 396

Abstract
Following bushfires in Sydney in 1994 a population of 20–30 common ringtail possums (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) that had been studied for four years was reduced to only one or two animals. In the intervening years population numbers remained at this low level. Four years after the fire, 22 ringtail possums were introduced into the study site and radio-tracked for 30 weeks. Nest usage shifted from predominantly dreys before the fire to an equal amount of time spent in dreys and tree hollows. Proportionally, the mortality due to predation by lace monitors (Varanus varius) and diamond pythons (Morelia spilota spilota) increased. Within 12 months the population returned to only two animals. We conclude that increased predation by native predators, added to continued predation by foxes and cats, has maintained a level of predation beyond a threshold that would allow the ringtail population to re-establish to previous levels.

References
In writing and refining these notes, I am indebted to a number of people who have helped. Cheyne Flanagan for the use of the excellent burns protocol by Port Macquarie Koala Hospital as a basis to work from. Marilyn Blankley and Gordon Lyall for their tireless work caring for and photographing the burns so that we can all learn from the experiences of Bear, Momma K, Verna and Heidi; Patti Durnigan for bringing her nurse expertise forward to make helpful additions to the burns protocol; Helen Cameron and others from Smith and Nephew P/L for directing me to a number of resources on healing burns.

Port Macquarie Koala Hospital Burns Protocol, 2002
www.smith-nephew.com.au/healthcare
www.rch.org.au/burns/clinical/index.cfm?doc id=2012
Herbivore damage, resource richness & putative defences in juvenile vs adult Eucalyptus leaves. By EA Gras, J READ, CT Mach, GD Sanson, FJ Clissold in Aust J Botany, 2005, 53 p 33 – 44.
Changes to a population of common ringtail possums (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) after bushfire. By BG Russell, B Smith, ML Augee. Wildlife Res. 30 (4) 389- 396

This article originally published on Ozark website for Australian Wildlife Carer's Network.