ACTIVITIES FOR UNDER 18'S 
 TO HELP WILDLIFE 

Wildlife Activities for Under 18's

Getting Started

Although you must be 18 or over to start volunteering as a rescuer and carer with WIRES, there are many ways you can be building your wildlife knowledge and skills while you wait.
Below are a range of ideas to help you learn more about helping Australian wildlife.

Complete our Free Community Course - An Introduction to Australian Wildlife

WIRES' online community course was designed to help younger children and families, particularly those new to Australia and Australian wildlife, to get a better understanding of common species and what to do if you find sick, injured, and orphaned animals. This is a free, self-enrolling online course and you can visit the course page for more information

Educational Wildlife Talks

In some cases WIRES may be able to assist with talks for school or community groups. To see if we have an available volunteer in NSW to assist please fill out our Educational Talk Enquiry Form. If you would like help locating your local wildlife group nationally, email training@wires.org.au.

Please be aware that when WIRES staff or volunteers provide community talks they are unable to bring any animals with them.  In accordance with our Licence, WIRES' must not permit any public viewing, display or exhibition of any protected animals undergoing rehabilitation. The animals that come into WIRES' care have been rescued as they are sick, injured, or orphaned, and they are being rehabilitated for return to the wild, so it is critical that their exposure to people and potential stress is minimised.

Create Pouches and Homes for Wildlife

Three items carers always need more of to help with wildlife rehabilitation and successful releases are; knitted pouches for joeys, dreys for ringtail possums, and possum boxes for brushtail possums. This might be an ideal project for you to make, or for you to organise a group of friends and family to help with.

Make Wildlife Friendly Gardens

Lack of habitat is one of the major threats for many wildlife species. In addition to projects like the above, if you love gardening you could work with your family or local community groups, to make local gardens more wildlife friendly.

Increase Wildlife Awareness

If you like sharing information about wildlife with friends and family there is a lot of wildlife information on WIRES site that you could share to help people learn more about wildlife. If you like inspiring others to take action to help your favourite native animals, you may also want to lead a fundraising event with your family or join WIRES annual Walk on the Wild Side.

Improving Wildlife Habitat and Conservation

To learn more about the environment and how best to protect it you may be interested in some of the opportunities with Junior Landcare, or joining the Roots and Shoots program with the Jane Goodall Institute. If you have ideas to drive positive change you may also be eligible for initiatives like the annual National Geographic Slingshot program.

Participate in Citizen Science

Researches and scientists often offer opportunities for community involvement in various programs to help improve long-term outcomes for wildlife. As an example you can join iNaturalist– a website and app where you can take pictures of your local animals and plants and upload them to contribute to science, or search for opportunities at DigiVol.

You Can Make a Difference

Your voice and actions are critical to the future of wildlife, and WIRES will continue developing and sharing more ways we can engage with wildlife advocates of all ages to improve wildlife outcomes.