The purple knicker-boxers that saved Prickles the echidna
<p><em><strong>Margaret Skeel, 67, is a disability support worker who grew up with an enduring love of wildlife and wilderness. In her spare time she gardens, takes long walks with her blind dog and writes about her life experiences. </strong></em> </p>
<p>As a long term wildlife rescuer and rehabber (currently semi-retired and looking after goats and chooks instead), I have far more stories that end in sadness than the happy ending kind. But luckily for you, I don’t write those stories. I much prefer remembering the happy ending stories like these ones.</p>
<p>I have had several adult echidnas come into care after some unfortunate encounter with a motor vehicle. As with most encounters between our native wildlife and cars, many have fatal consequences. Echidnas are very determined little characters, who know where they want to go and are intent on getting there. Male echidnas in breeding mood are particularly intent and don’t pay much attention to road conditions!</p>
<p>Cars have been given flat tires from echidna spines but for the most part, it is the echidna who gets flattened. Occasionally they survive, but with broken noses, their most vulnerable part. Unfortunately, this is a virtual death sentence since their tongues need a good nose in order to stick out and collect ants and termites, their sole diet. However, if they are not flattened and their noses are intact, echidnas are tough little survivors who bounce back with a bit of care.</p>
<p>My first echidna in that category (unflattened, nose intact) taught me just how determined echidnas can be. After a trip to the vet for a check-up and a shot to boost his adrenal glands (both platypus and echidnas have primitive adrenals and boosting them helps them recover from stress and shock, which is assumed for any animal that has a car accident), I took him home in a box. He was out of the box and trying to get out of the car by the time I got there. I put him in my room for the night, intending to release him the next morning. By 3am, my other half was threatening initiation of divorce procedures if something wasn’t done about the noise from the little guy.</p>
<p>Bumping, crashing, digging noises had been going on since he first went in there. I turned on the light hoping that would get him to go to sleep. No such luck, he went through every cupboard, shoving everything aside in his search for a way out. He then settled on the door as the most likely escape route and made every effort to dig a tunnel. Finally, I put on my welding gloves (echidnas are the only animal that I need gloves for) scooped him up and headed outside. I put him in the general direction of home and let go. He set off at a good waddle and was never seen again.</p>
<p>When I got the second echidna, I knew the bedroom was out. Luckily my son had built me a very good reptile enclosure in the front yard: two sheets of tin bolted together in a circle, secured firmly to a wooden base (rock solid hardwood planks), filled with dirt and rocks and plants for a nice habitat, a shallow pond in the middle, wire chook mesh over the top and securely fastened all the way round. What could go wrong?</p>
<p>It was winter and there was a bearded dragon lizard in residence but he was peacefully hibernating under a rock and echidnas don’t eat lizards so no problem I thought, in my innocence. The next morning, the enclosure looked like a bulldozer had been through it. All the rocks were overturned, all the plants ripped out by their roots and the poor lizard upside down and looking very dead. I grabbed him in a panic and began CPR. I warmed him with my hands, pressed on his chest and blew air in his nostrils and slowly he came back to life. Thank goodness! My son would not have been happy if the echidna killed the lizard.</p>
<p>I put the lizard in the house to recuperate and then went looking for the bulldozer. He was buried in dirt with his nose pressed against the crack between the wood and the tin and fast asleep, completely oblivious to the damage he had done. That evening, I took him back to where he came from and off he went, with that now familiar determined waddle.</p>
<p>My next close encounter of the echidna kind began with an early morning phone call. A friend on her way to work informed me she had found an injured echidna beside the road. She described the location but it was not going to be easy to find. The roadside along that stretch looks the same for a half a kilometre. “Can you mark the location somehow?” I asked. She had a look around but found nothing distinctive so she looked in the back of her car. “There is a pair of old purple boxer shorts back here,” she informed me. “It looks like my husband has been using them as a rag.” “Perfect! I won’t miss them!” I agreed as she stuck the purple knickers on the closest road marker to the site. She went off to work and I headed for the purple knickers. It was a good thing she had left them there as the echidna had wandered off into the long grass, and without the knickers I never would have known where to look!</p>
<p>I found a big fat echidna curled up in a ball in the grass. A lot of his spines had been broken but he was still alive. First, of course, there was the required visit to the vet. By this time, I had named my new charge Prickles. The vet examined him and proclaimed him in good health. No food was necessary as he could live off his fat. However, he needed shots to boost his adrenals and I was going to have to give them to him. This involved picking Prickles up, which caused him to roll up into a tight ball, turning him upside down on my lap and waiting for him to unroll enough to grab a leg and give him his shot. Needless to say he was not impressed with this procedure.</p>
<p>I kept him in my bedroom for the day so I could give him his shots and then took him out to the reptile enclosure at night. We went through this procedure for three days until all the shots were given. Then it was time to take Prickles home. I fetched my welding gloves and took him for a drive. Up the road from the purple underpants was a small dirt side-track. I found a lovely half rotten fallen log to put him next to. It looked a likely hideout for a termite colony.</p>
<p>When he was down, Prickles unrolled slowly. He was probably still worried about a hand shooting out and stabbing him in the leg again. He sniffed around and then started digging. In ten minutes he was buried, so I took my welding gloves and went home after wishing Prickles a long life and many echidna babies for the future.</p>
<p>Have you ever seen an echidna in the wild? Share your experience with us in the comments below.</p>
<p><span><em>If you've enjoyed Margaret's wildlife stories, she's written a book about a playtpus she once saved, </em></span><em>called <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Platypus-Dreaming-Adventures-Lucky-Friends-ebook/dp/B01FJWS8ZM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1463288992&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=bilby+skeel&linkCode=sl1&tag=wwwheliumco06-20&linkId=ed0fd2bc666287009c299ccb5f958418" target="_blank">"Platypus Dreaming: The Adventures of One Lucky Platypus and Her</a></strong></span></em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>"</strong></span><em>. She also recently finished a children's book about the legend of the Australian bilby, which can be <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Walpajirri-Adventures-Rabbit-Eared-Bandicoot-Australian-ebook/dp/B01CSJ22QU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1464041313&sr=8-1&keywords=walpajirri+skeel&linkCode=sl1&tag=wwwheliumco06-20&linkId=a20928b30229dd4556ba6611fd2c48b5" target="_blank">found here.</a></strong></span></em></p>
<p><em><strong>If you have a story to share please get in touch at <a href="mailto:melody@oversixty.com.au">melody@oversixty.com.au</a></strong></em></p>
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