Volunteer wildlife carers are suffering from burn-out and "compassion fatigue" due to the stress of the job, while some are even being driven to suicide, according to a Canberra therapist.

Key points: Wildlife carers deal continuously with death, sickness and loss

Wildlife carers deal continuously with death, sickness and loss Juggling paid work along with their volunteer work also takes a toll

Juggling paid work along with their volunteer work also takes a toll There are calls for more to be done to encourage volunteers to seek help

Frances Carleton is a counsellor and wildlife carer herself.

She said she had witnessed declining mental health among carers she knows and those who have sought her out for professional help.

"I have seen people who are verging on suicidal because they don't know how to deal with all their emotions," she said.

"Quite often there are lots of things going on, but an animal might have died and that's pushed them over the edge of 'I can't deal with it anymore'."

After seeing what she perceived as a lack of self-care within the community, she started offering her services pro bono to wildlife carers.

"We have lost wildlife carers to suicide just purely because they haven't been able to talk about what's going on for them," she said.

Encountering grief and loss

Wildlife carer Alicia Perritt with two of her children. ( ABC News: Alexandra Alvaro )

Alicia Perritt has been volunteering as a reptile carer for five years now — performing rescues, caring for them and releasing them when they are healthy enough to survive.

She knows all too well the feeling of dread that accompanied not being able to keep rescues alive.

Ms Perritt said this year had been especially tough because she had treated two injured blue tongue lizards — who were also pregnant — within a week of each other.

"It felt a bit like a maternity ward for blue tongues because they were just coming in big and fat and out came all these babies," she said.

But most of the baby lizards came out stillborn.

"It was just hard to see them curled up in a little sack and not moving at all," she said.

"I still took them and I rubbed them in a towel and I warmed them up just in case they might survive.

"That's really tough, to see the miracle of birth and death at the same time."

Sleepless nights, lost relationships take a toll

Wildlife carer Suzy Nethercott-Watson looking after a kangaroo joey in her home. ( ABC News: Alexandra Alvaro )

Wildlife carer Suzy Nethercott-Watson looks after kangaroos, sugar gliders, possums and wombats.

She wakes up four times during the night to feed them, as well as doing their washing, and letting the kangaroos outside so they can learn to walk on their own.

"It does place tension on relationships. I've got to feed an animal versus spend time with someone else," she said.

"The fact that you're tied to a regime of feeding means that your social life gets structured around that, so your social interactions becomes less."

Carers like Ms Nethercott-Watson could be suffering from disenfranchised grief. ( ABC News: Alexandra Alvaro )

For Ms Nethercott-Watson, that sometimes meant the anxiousness she experienced went unnoticed by others — and began building up.

"How do you describe what it's like looking after this tiny little animal that you know is probably not going to survive?" she said.

"There's a level of trying to work through that, that means you go into yourself."

Carers tend to ignore personal suffering: therapist

Counsellor Frances Carleton has observed declining mental health in wildlife carers. ( ABC News: Adam Kennedy )

There are about 55 wildlife volunteers working in the ACT alone. And more than half of them are balancing their responsibilities on top of a full-time job.

Some volunteers can have up to 30 animals in their care at a time.

Ms Carleton said, along with the financial stress and the strain volunteering had on other aspects on carers' lives, the grief could be overwhelming.

She said because carers were often self-sacrificing by nature, they were less likely to take care of their own mental health, with sometimes devastating consequences.

"They care for everybody else ... so when it comes to caring for themselves, they are so far down on the pecking order of care.

"Most wildlife organisations will have a motto or a band of 'we rescue, we rehab, we release'. There's nothing in there about 'we'll care, we'll get attached, we'll grieve'."

Due to the constant loss volunteers experienced, she said many carers suffered from disenfranchised grief.

"When we repeatedly push down grief, it can build up ... it can lead to things like burn-out and compassion fatigue," she said,

'Everything else has to melt away'

Lizards and other reptiles are often in need of care. ( ABC News: Alexandra Alvaro )

Ms Carleton said volunteer organisations needed to start recognising the need for carers to grieve.

"Ensuring that as part of constitutions in wildlife organisations metal health is specifically mentioned, not just workplace health and safety," she said.

Ms Perritt said it was time for wildlife carers to learn to reach out and ask for help.

"It's okay and if you're having a bad day, it's okay to talk about it," she said.

"Unfortunately things can build up over years.

"You may be okay now, and you may be okay in a month from now and then six months from now you have a breakdown ... so we need to get it out there now."

But despite emotional strain, both women said they were far from calling it quits.

"I do get a real sense of where I fit in with this world when I'm feeding a baby joey. Everything else has to melt away," Ms Nethercott-Watson said.

"It gives a lot to me."