Tessa’s Reptile Services

20/06/2026

I know this is unrelated, but I just wanted to give a MASSIVE shoutout to this amazing group who are fundraising today at Bunnings Joondalup doing a sausage sizzle.

Please go down and give your support and buy a hot dog and assist people who really deserve community support.

Hi everyone - we are here and ready to serve you! Come down to Bunnings Joondalup and get some sausages and drinks served by our Deaf Netball WA players!
Go WA!
💛🏐🖤🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭

14/06/2026

I know its winter and most of our reptiles are in brumation, but I just wanted to highlight something that we can all do for our local bobtails over winter.

🦎 Keep an eye on their condition.

When they come out to bask on those rare sunny moments on these winter days, please check to see how appear.

Most are cold, slow in movement, sleepy, which is very normal for cold blooded animals in winter, but this can make them vulnerable to predators and Bobtail Flu.

Rats are a HUGE ISSUE, they eat the bobtails while theyre asleep as theyre too cold to move away and an easy protein source,

I have had quite a few admissions the last two months of bobtails missing partial or whole sections of their tails (like pictured below), pieces of the face and head missing with bone exposed, legs missing and sections along their back gnawed off.

Please use humane traps or 1st generation baits to control rodents on your property. Unfortunately for the one below, he came from a bush area at Neil Hawkins park, and we have rat colonies living in our bush throughout Perth and also in our coastal dune areas along the coast, so even our bobtails in bush areas aren't safe. Its why local snakes are so important, they eat the rats that predate our wildlife in bush areas and around your homes.

For those bobtails in park and bush areas, just keep an eye out on your walks and give me a call if you see one needing assistance, like the caring family who did, when they found this poor boy and got him to me so I could get him the right care.

The other condition that affects bobtails is BOBTAIL FLU / Shingleback Nidovirus,
It is a highly contagious respiratory illness. It is not contagious to humans or other pets like dogs and cats.

Symptoms appear as follow :

🦎 Weepy bubbly eyes or eye lids crusty and unable to open.
🦎Sneezing, runny nose , mucous bubbles coming from nostrils.
🦎Pale inner mucosa of mouth.
🦎Lethargic
🦎Raising head in air, gasping for breath
🦎Flat, thin tails with very little fat on it , vertebrae may be visible. Featherlike in appearance.
Bobtails should have a solid tail that they use for fat storage so they can survive over winter during the brumation process.
🦎Sunken hips.
🦎Sunken eyes.

Call for wildlife assistance if you see a bobtail with the above symptoms, as it can seriously affect community populations.

13/06/2026

This is what i worried about for Lake Joondalup and our turtles with increased development around the lake and water run off into the lake from roads and developments etc

and its only gonna get worse, development does affects black swan nesting grounds and other species , classic example is the back of drovers , black swans nested there for years , now they developed it , the swans have stopped nesting in their nesting grounds and moved on

04/06/2026

i Labor you should be ashamed

31/05/2026

Received a call from a concerned resident in Padbury today after she noticed her local bobtail stuck in a tight spot in her fence and it was looking pretty miserable. She said her children and her noticed it yesterday and when she saw it stuck in the same spot, she called me for help.

When I arrived, poor thing was fully stuck in this tight gap and it took a fair amount effort of manipulating it into various positions with my one hand and two fingers to get it into the right position to lift up the fence gap and out the top.

His back legs were stiff from being stuck in the wrong position for a long period of time and he was ice cold, so I decided to take him home to allow him to decompress in a warm viv until this weather passes after his ordeal.

Grateful to the homeowner for caring and noticing him in his predicament, I’ve seen many a bobtail die from getting stuck in similar situations with this cold weather as our bobtails seek a warm, dry place to hide for winter.

Noongar name - Yoorn
Species - Tiliquia rugosa
Common name - Shingleback lizard, blue tongue lizard, Pine cone lizard.

Tessa - 0409378717

30/05/2026

Rocky Ridge Wildlife Sanctuary are having an education & fundraising stall at Padbury Shopping centre if you're wanting to do something this morning.

qe are educating the public on the effectx of wildlife from urbanisation and what they are doing to assist our wildlifewildlife .

01/05/2026

I know I’ve been very quiet of late, I’ve been still very busy behind the scenes and still catching, I guess I’ve struggled with the loss of a very dear friend, but I wanted to update you all on an important development surrounding the turtles that get trapped at Lake Monger.

After recently finding another trapped turtle, I contacted Water Corp and thankfully I was put through to someone who could read my frustration and promised to finally get some resolve for this issue and Kayla I want to say a massive thanks from me for listening and caring.

Kayla reached out to Dr Jeremy Maher who is a wetland and turtle specialist who has worked on many projects around Perth that have created working wetlands within urban environments including the swan river basin revamp. He looked into the site himself, and from my information, identified the issues I was struggling with.

He then met me yesterday with Kayla to actually look at the site together to discuss what things I’d observed for him to note and discuss the plans he had begun to put in place to correct this issue to protect our turtles from getting into the grate, as well as engineering contingencies we will do, to help them get out of the drain if they do. We even had a turtle pop up and say hello whilst we were looking around the site 😆

They are throwing everything at this situation to resolve it, new grates inserts are being trialed over the next few weeks, and we will continue to monitor and adapt the drain over the next 12 months as the water levels rise again this winter and drop over summer. If we need to bore a new outlet for the turtles into the drain, they will.

Hopefully we get the best outcome and we don’t have stuck, starving turtles anymore, I’m so relieved we managed to finally resolve this issue for our Lake Monger Turtles.

Thanks for all my followers who pm’d information and sources for me to look up, it all helped. 💪🏽

20/04/2026

I wish they’d listen to the experts , Australian native forests are unique

09/04/2026

Heartbreaking that this invasive pest is now affecting black cockatoo feeding trees too. It’s hard to see a future for our black cockatoo’s with the extensive clearing of bush for urban housing around Perth and now this invasive pest is wiping out what’s left 😔

A local government in Perth’s north is no longer planting a certain native plant species as the number of trees lost to an invasive pest continues to grow.

Link in comments for full story.

21/03/2026

For those searching for a alternate rat trap that doesn’t involve chemicals

Whoever posted that big bucket 1/3 filled with water and floating sunflower seeds as a rat trap! I freaking LOVE you!!! Read more: https://mideas.co/elTmg