A man has quit his job to save 'zombie-like' wombats from a deadly parasite. <br /><br />Toby Boorne, 25, has taken it upon himself and quit his job in marketing to save as many wombats as possible from mange.<br /><br />Mange, a disease caused by a parasitic mite, is invasive to Australia and has been wreaking havoc on the wombats.<br /><br />Toby, from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia said: "Mange is an introduced parasite. <br /><br />"Wombats have no defense against it and it's causing them to go locally extinct in some areas."<br /><br />Mange causes the marsupials to lose their hair and develop skin lesions, eventually killing them. <br /><br />Toby hunts down the wombats with a large net and treats them with cattle soak to rid them of the mange. <br /><br />The sick animals are reported to him by locals in his area and he goes down to find them. <br /><br />He said: "They're reported by community members and local landowners, they call me and say, I've got wombats here and they look like zombies.<br /><br />"Then I just drive down the valley and try to spot them."<br /><br />Toby, who's also a photographer and filmmaker, quit his digital marketing job in August to focus on the animals.<br /><br />He was able to do so after he raised 900k AU$ in a crowdfunding campaign.<br /><br />Despite still working, Toby was able to save 36 wombats in 2023 alone and hopes to expand his operation now.<br /><br />He said: When I first started it was a couple of wombats in our place, I bought the meds from Amazon and helped my neighbours.<br /><br />"Before long, the whole area knew me as the wombat guy.<br /><br />"I was working from Monday to Thursday and then Friday to Sunday it was just wombats from 9 AM to 10 PM.<br /><br />The wombats require treatment every week for around six weeks to be cured and must be left in their habitat. <br /><br />This makes Toby's job extremely time-consuming as he must seek the animals out each time he wants to treat them. <br /><br />He said: "Wombats get stressed really easily and catching them with my net already scares them enough.<br /><br />"If I took them out of their habitat they would literally keel over and die."<br /><br />Toby has been working at this for the last ten years, but his interest in helping them started at just seven years old. <br /><br />He said: "Dad took me for a bush walk at seven and I saw one. I said: 'Dad, I'm going to sneak up on it.<br /><br />"It was the closest I had ever been to a wild animal, it suddenly turned around and had blood and pus coming from its eyes.<br /><br />"I found out it had mange and I could cure it and became instantly obsessed, that was why it looked like a zombie, that was why it was out during the day."<br /><br />Despite how passionate he is about the issue, Toby says there is still not enough support for the issue. <br /><br />He said: "In my area, it's just me. I'm the only one but the more wombats I can save and the more hearts I can turn, the better. <br /><br />"Bigger and better ways of saving wombats are coming."
