Wildlife & Raptor Care Queensland

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Julatten, QLD
Wildlife & Raptor Care Queensland

Wildlife & Raptor Care Queensland Inc. The facility is a Wildlife Refuge and directly adjoins the vast AWC holding “Brooklyn”.

(ABN: 32 124 230 171) is an Australian NFP organisation providing care and rehabilitation of more specialised wildlife including raptors and other birds of prey with the view to safe and sustainable ultimate release. Wildlife & Raptor Care Queensland Inc. … or WARCQ for short … is a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation organisation based in Julatten in Far North Queensland, Australia. The WARCQ faci

lity is located on 20 hectares of natural wet sclerophyll, open eucalypt and rainforest / riparian corridor forests in a medium altitude Great Dividing Range environment. At present, the WARCQ facilities comprise a purpose-built 15m care and flight aviary for raptors and birds of prey as well as a treatment clinic and other support services. A raptor prey-breeding facility is also located on-site. WARCQ personnel work closely with wildlife rescue groups in the region to ensure that injured wildlife are received into WARCQ care in a timely manner given prevailing circumstances. WARCQ personnel hold all necessary permits for wildlife brought into the care facility. (ABN: 32 124 230 171) is an Australian Registered Charity, Not-For-Profit organisation providing care and rehabilitation of more specialised wildlife including raptors and other birds of prey with the view to safe and sustainable ultimate release.

15/03/2026

This is very promising in helping to increase the numbers in the population of these absolute amazing birds. 🪶

25/02/2024

Finally after TC Jasper from December last year we now have vehicle access into WARCQ Sanctuary & human facilities it’s been and absolute challenge at times but it’s made the wait all worth while today being able to drive in knowing that we dont have to worry about walking planks, paddock bashing and getting bogged, hauling animal supplies in by hand crating birds in and out without getting wet from rain or chewed by mosquitoes and marchflies 😅

Thank you to QRIDA, EQ Resources and Dean Jack Excavations for getting us up and running again

20/12/2023

WARCQ Sanctuary and all of the wildlife has survived TC Jasper and all of the 1.678 metres of rain which came there after. The driveway into the facility has been completely washed away and up until now we have had no mobile or phone service. Fortunately we are on stand alone solar already so we managed to get through on rationing fuel for the generator.

Our birds are back in the aviaries finally after being crated for days, we lost one patient sadly, a barn owl. RIP Pheonix

Many of the resident pademelons hunkered down whilst others decided to swim across the creek to come home, some had to be sedated and others were lucky enough to find the fireplace inside to stay dry.

Unfortunately we were unable to respond and rescue many distressed, waterlogged and exhausted birds simply because we couldn’t get to them but we did respond to a few injured birds and mammals locally including a very emaciated and exhausted peregrine falcon, he is currently still in ICU and we are hopeful we can refeed him and he will make a full recovery.

One last note; please be careful as floodwaters recede, drive carefully as the roads open. Port Douglas road to Cairns will be closed for many weeks yet and alternative routes are already receiving lots of traffic and makeshift repairs are and will suffer the impact.

Much love to you all from all of us at WARCQ 🪶💚🪶

14/11/2023

What an absolute shocker of a day yesterday! A huge amount of work going on with patients at the moment with a beautiful large female Osprey in primary care, a large female peregrine with soft tissue injuries, but it was this guy who has completely taken the wind out of me and the volunteers here. So I sit now to take a minute to reflect and grieve.

A huge effort went into rescuing this young wedge-tailed eagle yesterday, thank you to Gabriel and TMR in getting him to WARCQ from Lakeland which is north of here. We tried so very hard to get him stabilised with fluids and pain relief but his injuries making it difficult with him continuing to vomit his last roadside meal before he undoubtedly was struck by a vehicle. Such a young bird, life cut way too short due to human impact.

03/08/2023

It is with a very heavy heart in which I write this post and inform the birding community that one of the city Rufous owls was rescued and bought into care this week and after a thorough veterinary assessment it was determined that the head trauma he had sustained had caused permanent eyesight loss to the bird and thus humane euthanasia was decided. It’s thought that he had already a deficit in the left eye with scarring and damage to both front and back chambers of the eye and extensive bleeding in the right eye which was unlikely to resolve and he was indeed blind. We believe that it was one of the Grafton St - Pier pairs (s*x yet to be determined)

The most heartbreaking part of this story is that Wildlife & Raptor Care Queensland have now been involved with rescue and rehabilitation of one of each of the three pairs in the Cairns region, with last being the Les Davies Park female rufous before Christmas, dying several days later in care from vehicle strike, necropsy revealing a fatal bleed in the liver. This pair were fraught with many complications in the past breeding seasons and WARCQ also tried incredibly hard to nurse one of their chicks in October 2021 from Asian honeybee stings which proved to also be fatal for the young owlet.

As for the Freshwater female she did not return home to her territory after coming in with a infective eye in May 2022.

We do not know what this means for our very loved Rufous owls here in the city landscape of Cairns… they are the largest owl in the wet tropics of Australia with a subspecies in NT and Cape York. WARCQ do average a few coming into care across our region each year for many reasons, some are lucky enough to be returned into their territories, others have had resources put in to them as young birds to find them new territories and others such as this post have not lived another day. If there is anything which can be added, not one bird which comes through our doors would have come here if it wasn’t for the failings of humans, and if it wasn’t for the few who are reading this now also with heavy hearts it’s the people like you who help us keep going on. With your support we are encouraged to continue the work we do.

Amber🪶

20/07/2023

All of our local Ospreys are being very busy parents at the moment including this pair over at Cape Tribulation 🐟🦅

17/06/2023

Another success story in the making for this eastern barn owl. It’s these little wins which have not come easy but are very important to highlight.

Over the years at WARCQ we have developed and streamlined our protocols to deal with barbwire entanglement which has lead to better outcomes and higher percentage of raptors healing from their injuries and returning back to the wild. This also means our resources (often lack there of) are better utilised and our patients do not suffer a long rehabilitation with a poor prognosis and we can also make that call sooner than later.

Barbwire is one of the leading reasons our owls come into care across the Atherton Tablelands with vehicle strike being a very close second.

Finally it is also important to note that removing an owl or any other animal off barbwire is just as important in their survival process as the treatment. If you are ever unsure and you are able to cut the fence and leave the barbwire insitu so that the removal of the barbwire can be completed in a more controlled manner, or call for assistance or advice. Always cover the face of the animal to prevent stress and further injury both to the animal and the rescuer.

04/06/2023

After some intensive care and lots of fluids the Papuan Frogmouth is starting feel better. She was rescued by a member of the public on Thursday, dropped off with not many details just a location of where she was found. It’s possible she has suffered from some sort of toxicity as her feacal output has been extra smelly (that says a lot because normal is usually quite smelly)

02/06/2023

Can you guess the bird species which came in today? The weight and the tail feather pattern should be a helpful hint… found only in NE Queensland and they are essentially nocturnal 🤔

✔️photo of bird species in comments

Address

Julatten, QLD
4871

Website

https://warcq.org/

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