Merry Christmas from
Currumbin Wildlife Hospital!
Dr Michael Pyne and the team at Currumbin Wildlife Hospital would like to thank you for saving wildlife. It is with your support that the team can continue to treat, rehabilitate and release more than 14, 000 wildlife patients each year, including 252 different species.
This is sadly the first Christmas that the Koala species will be spending on the endangered list. Dr Michael Pyne and Ambassador Molly Belle Wright starred in this Christmas video to inspire people to support our Koala research over the holiday season.
Wishing you a magical Christmas and a fantastic 2023 from our Currumbin Wildlife Hospital team and each and every wildlife patient.
This Christmas we are also reflecting on our major achievements at Currumbin Wildlife Hospital. One of the highlights has been vaccinating 200 local Koalas as part our Koala Chlamydia Vaccine Research Program, led by Senior Vet Dr Michael Pyne.
Our vet team are successfully tracking 29 Koalas in the wild and there have been 12 joeys born to females that are part of the program. A sign of hope for the future of Koalas!
The program, initiated in 2020 in partnership with Queensland University of Technology, aims to establish the level of vaccination required within an infected Koala population to reduce the overall incidence of chlamydia and improve the associated fertility so that the population stabilises or increases.
The cost of this research project has been calculated to be $1,057,109 over a 5-year period. The first year of which was made possible by the generous support of founding partners including the Neumann Family, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate, The City of Gold Coast, WildArk and Rotary Currumbin Coolangatta Tweed.
In 2022 WWF-Australia extended their partnership with additional and significant donation to support the vaccine program.
Currumbin Wildlife Hospital has launched a Christmas appeal to raise awareness and funds to bridge the final funding gap and enable this innovative vaccination trial to continue for the full 5 years.
This Christmas we are asking people to give the gift of saving wildlife.