Causes and outcomes of short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) wildlife hospital admissions across south-east Queensland, Australia

Abstract

Wildlife hospital admission records provide an important, underutilised lens on anthropogenic threats to the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), a cryptic species lacking systematic population monitoring across much of Australia. We analysed 2,969 echidna admissions from four major wildlife hospitals in south-east Queensland (Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, Currumbin Wildlife Hospital, RSPCA Wacol, and RSPCA Eumundi) spanning 2010–2024. Vehicle collisions were the most common recorded cause of admission (39.9%), followed by ‘unknown’ (25.3%), ‘found on road’ (10.3%), and dog attack (10.1%), together comprising 85.6% of all admissions. Cause of admission differed significantly by age class, with adults over-represented among vehicle collision and found on road cases, and subadults over-represented among water-incident admissions. Admissions were strongly seasonal: winter accounted for 35.4% of admissions and autumn 31.4%, with mixed-effects modelling indicating a 67% probability that admissions occurred in autumn/winter after accounting for hospital and interannual variation. Overall survival among cases with known outcomes was 55.5%, varying substantially by admission cause. Detailed diagnostic data available from Australia Zoo showed trauma dominance, particularly beak fractures and soft-tissue injury, and characteristic multilesion patterns concentrated in vehicle collision cases. These findings establish a regional baseline to inform targeted mitigation and improved standardisation of hospital data capture.