22/12/2025
🎄 Our Annual Christmas Charity Donation 🎄
For the past 9 years, since opening Saltwater Medical, our team has proudly continued a tradition close to our hearts — our annual Christmas charity donation.
Each year, our doctors and staff donate personally, and the practice matches whatever is raised. This year, together, we raised $1,050, which we were honoured to donate to the Wildlife Warriors Animal Hospital at Australia Zoo 🦔💚
This year’s donation felt especially meaningful. Throughout the year, our Practice Director and co-owner Jen has spent countless hours as a volunteer community advocate, lobbying for urgent action to restore our waterway and rebuild our barrier island — vital work to help protect Caloundra from storm surge and erosion, restore the amenity of our waterways, improve water quality, and address ongoing bar safety issues.
That advocacy became deeply personal with the story of Edwina the Echidna. During one of her many visits to the island following the destruction caused by Cyclone Alfred, Jen came across an echidna stranded on a rapidly shrinking scrap of isolated land left after the erosion and destruction of the northern spit of Bribie Island. In the weeks that followed, as we realised that scrap of island was rapidly washing away, with dwindling food and freshwater, Jen went back half a dozen times searching for the echidna. Some of the missions were alongside wildlife carer Sybelle Foxcroft, also with Jen’s niece, Rose. Unfortunately, we couldnt find the echidna, although we saw many signs of life.
Ultimately, it’s believed Edwina was washed off the island and forced to swim for her life to Golden Beach, as one fateful Saturday morning in July, an echidna was rescued by Dave, a volunteer member of the Coast Guard Caloundra - QF4, who spotted her just metres from shore, going under for what appeared to be the last time.
Dave jumped into the water to save her and, once she was safely ashore, soon realised she was the same echidna the Jen and the community had been searching for. Suffice to say, Jen’s phone “blew up” with calls from half of Golden Beach — a community that had been anxiously following Edwina’s story.
Dave brought Edwina to Saltwater Medical that morning, but recognising she needed specialist veterinary care (not GP care!), Jen transported her to Australia Zoo. Edwina had a lot of water in her airways and then spent over two weeks receiving expert treatment at the Wildlife Warriors Animal Hospital before being given a ride home by Jen and the Coast Guard, and being successfully released back into the wild at Lighthouse Reach, a few kilometres south of the breakthrough caused by Cyclone Alfred.
There’s a link to one of the many news articles about this story in the comments 👉😃
A heartfelt thank you to Wildlife Warriors and Australia Zoo, and to all the incredible wildlife carers and volunteers in our community who work tirelessly to rehabilitate and protect Australia’s beautiful animals.
From all of us at Saltwater Medical — thank you for helping us support work that truly matters 💙
