It’s not uncommon to come across a wombat on the side of the road in Australia. It’s also not uncommon for Emily Small to take them in if they’re orphaned, sick, or injured, rehabilitating them in her wombat orphanage for release back into the wild.

What is uncommon, though, is Small spending her time during the COVID-19 lockdown in her Melbourne apartment with three orphaned bare-nosed wombats as roommates.

“How can having baby wombats around you not be good company?” she says.

In 2002, Small founded the Goongerah Wombat Orphanage, in East Gippsland, which she co-manages with her mother. They receive six to eight wombat joeys a year, usually orphans whose mothers were killed by cars.

She juggles her orphanage work