Local animals are suffering from poison

Tony Woolley and the dead powerful owl. Picture: TONY WOOLLEY FACEBOOK

By Dongyun Kwon

A few weeks ago, a powerful owl was found dead from 1080 poison in the Warrandyte area.

Babbajin Park Wildlife Shelter founder Tony Woolley said the powerful owl was taken to a vet after a local found it.

“They’ve done a test on it and the result said it was poisoned. I ended up putting the bird to rest,” Mr Woolley said.

“It is not very good. I don’t want to see animals suffering from poison.”

The poison which killed the owl is 1080 poison which is used for the control of a variety of pest animals by Agriculture Victoria.

“They do a baiting program in national parks and drop it from the air as well,” Mr Woolley said.

“The powerful owl would have eaten animals which ate the bait.”

Mr Woolley said the poison 1080 should be banned in Australia to protect wild animals.

“A lot of countries have banned using 1080 poison while Australia is still using it. We’ve got to ban this potent poison,” he said.

Mr Woolley has been running Babbajin Park Wildlife Shelter for a few decades to take care of sick and injured wild animals.

He has grown up with animals since he was three years old because of his dad who was a curator at London Zoo.

“The purpose of founding Babbajin Park Wildlife Shelter is to rehabilitate injured wildlife animals and put them back into the wild,” Mr Woolley said.

“We have 65 animals at the moment which are all natural animals.”