My own experience may be of some interest
the local wires member for my area I know as a former school teacher who taught primary school in early 90s, shes well known, lovely person
I assumed itd be her who'd pickup naga
it wasnt, apparently closest person was down nowra way
the juristiction they cover seems absolutely insane
and wildlife rehab licences are granted only if thiers no one in the area your in
its my understanding from what I seen, possibly as far as reptiles go. someone say in batemans bay would still tick all the boxes for being in the area of thirroul etc down my way
leads me to think reptile rescue licences possibly arnt granted on that alone and thats one hell of a big area
keeping in mind my school teacher wires contact always seemed to take care of fluffy things with the only exception being fairy penguins as far as birds go, I never once knew her to keep a reptile
With my first rescued wild skink, I asked the local reptile vet who the local OFFICIAL REPTILE RESCUER in our area was and was bluntly told there was no one (this was for an area from Gosford to Taree and probably even further afield).
I was gobsmacked by that and asked about the RSPCA or WIRES and was told that aren't interested and the response is likely to be immediate euthanisation on collection ( out of my sight of cause ) , I wasn't going to let that happen unless it was necessary ( no likelihood of it ever having a good quality of life ).
So I asked what if I chose to care for and rehabilitate the skink , and was told if I was willing to put the time and effort into it, they were willing to help me by supervising and providing meds and advise FOC and since I am retired and have the means and time to give very intensive care to the skink , it had a better chance of recovering in my home than with them where it'll one of many animals in a very stressful environment and they wouldn't be able to give it such intensive care as I could. So that settled that, I was told if the skink never became capable of fending for itself the best options will be either ask Gosford Reptile Park if they were willing to take the skink, or simply keep it as a pet.
I was sent home with a 26W UVB200 and clamp light and a heatpad , and feeding syringe and special feeding tubes , a supply of HerpaBoost , and of CalciVet , and the meds ( some as injections , some as oral meds ), detailed instructions and asked to bring him ( a little juvenile water skink ) back in 2 weeks for the vet to check how things were going , neither the vet or I expected the skink to survive til then, but he did , and 4 months down the track he was recovered , the injuries healed , and he was thriving and growing but still needing assist feeding by me.
I ended up keeping him since he was blind in one eye and had a broken lower jaw and needed a special (soft) diet. He passed away in his sleep of old age one night 10 years later.
Uptake , WIRES and RSPCA aren't interested if it's not cute and fury or covered in feathers. Not worth the call to contact them.
And there is too many hoops to jump through and too many organisations are more interested in getting their snouts in the grants and funding trough and the distribution of LICENCED REPTILE RESCUERS is patchy at best.
Best result is to take the reptile to a reptile vet for assessment and offer to care for it and nurse it back to health yourself under their supervision if it's got a good future prognosis and if you have the time and knowhow and facilities ( even a converted tub will be fine to house a sink / injured reptile).
all I can think is I wish its not true, atleast for nagas case, she was released in the vets backyard as far as I know. she may return and the women had a high respect for reptiles
all that said, I got told at the ver, thier reptile specialist is on leave in india and to come back next month when I mentioned bluetongue before they connected the dots
I'm betting it's living "one of their backyards" and will likely soon wonder inside their home looking for a cosy and safe place to curl up.
