Kerstin Schweth and her husband, Woody knew as soon as they laid eyes on a property in Robertson that it would become their home.
“We were on a motorbike ride to the Snowy Mountains and went through Robertson, saw a property for sale and fell in love with it. That was back in 2006 and now it’s where our Native Wildlife Rescue service is based,” Kerstin explains.
Rescuing poorly animals wasn’t new to Kerstin and Woody. Before they moved to the Southern Highlands, they looked after injured birds and possums in Sydney.
“But when we moved here and after doing a venomous reptile course in the Highlands, we wanted to get more involved in wildlife rescue,” says Kerstin.
The couple initially did the course to prepare themselves for living with their slithery friends on their land, but were so taken with the challenges these reptiles face, they offered assistance and started to help rescue injured reptiles which expanded to looking after injured flying foxes, bats, kangaroos, koalas, wombats and more.
The injured animals were housed in a rundown enclosure that was used by the previous owner as a chicken coop.
“I converted it into a simple enclosure and left the other outbuilding untouched – we just didn’t have the time and resources to get to it,” Kerstin explains.
After the fires, there was an increase in the number of injured animals which put pressure on their minimal resources to house them and look after them while they healed.
“That’s when Cadence & Co got in touch with us. Director Joe Proud came out and had a look at our enclosure and within days we had a team of people onsite building us a new enclosure!” Kerstin says.
The Cadence & Co team swung into action and within days, Joe and his apprentice Jess Gardiner were onsite knocking down the original enclosure. An excavator rolled up on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, a team of workers from the Cadence & Co offices turned up, rolled up their sleeves and built new enclosures for Native Wildlife Rescue in three days!
How amazing is that!