Sad End for celebrity wallaby!

Hey everyone, thought we would write about a horrible rescue we had yesterday. It started 24 hours prior to that with about 6 calls coming in from all over about a wallaby in central Ballarat CBD area. It was Walt and Tiff on the go this time round. Off we went but the animal was nowhere to be seen. We searched for about an hour but it had gone, so we put the call out on the radio for people in that area to check back yards / car parks. ABC 774 picked up the story and did an interview in which we told people to have a look... this was the quickest way for us to find it. Nothing came through, so we kissed it goodbye. Anyway, the next day we get a call from an industrial park who heard the story on ABC radio the day before and called the wallaby in. It was in the same area. So off Tiff and I went, and attached to us where the film crew doing the pilot for the Discovery show.
It certainly needed moving on as it was along rail lines, in a busy manufacturing plant with large trucks and no way out other than onto a main street.
A text book rescue, cornered along a fence line right angle. So we enlisted the help of a bystander, got the net and Walt chased it along the fence into the net. The animal was sedated and captured. However during the process of capture, Walt noticed that it's eyes looked cloudy.. not too drastic, but they certainly weren't normal. It was decided that as a safety measure we'd take it to the vets. It appeared that the wallaby had little or no sight... As if by magic, Monika and Luke were also arriving at the vets with a flying fox.... and Monnie spotted the tell tail stench, it appeared to have mange (not sure if that's spelled correctly).
2 hours of deliberation later, it was confirmed that the animal had no sight at all and that mange was rife.
She was an old wallaby with pinky that sadly wasn't viable. Tell tail ears fused down, large bulging black eyes that were closed. It was decided on a group vote with 2 vets and 4 carers, that it was kindest for the animal if it was put down. The stress of the parasite, the lack of sight (even if it was temporary but it was believed to be permanent), plus bad condition warranted the euthanasia.
It was a sad end to a great rescue and we all felt really flat afterwards. I guess it's a strong reminder that a good rescue doesn't always end with a release... as hard as it is to take for the rescuer.