Hills Wildlife Sanctuary sits at the end of Carters Road in Dural, 35 acres of bushland on Dharug country with Berowra Valley National Park at its back. Marjorie Wilson started it in 1977 as the Kangaroo Protection Co-operative, on land the state set aside under Premier Neville Wran, and for nearly five decades it has taken in animals hit on the roads, surrendered by people who tried to keep them as pets, or handed over after being caught up in the illegal trade. Ben Dessen volunteered here as a teenager. About ten years ago he and his brother Sam moved onto the site and, with more than twenty volunteers and resident wildlife vet Dr Audrey Shen, rebuilt it enclosure by enclosure. Some residents can never go back to the bush and stay on as ambassadors: Casper, a white kookaburra with poor eyesight; Byron, a rescued black cockatoo; a wombat called Wendy who was raised in a house; and a family of dingoes, sold as puppies online, who are now walked through the bush three or four times a week.
Feeding all of them is the quiet daily job, and it is where the neighbours come in. Twice a week the Harris Farm store in Dural sends up its surplus fruit and vegetables, food past its shelf but nowhere near past its goodness, and this year the store's community programme, Neighbourhood Goodness, paid for a brand new cool room so the produce keeps between runs. It is one of 92 local organisations the grocer backed in 2025, and the sanctuary lists Harris Farm among its silver sponsors beside a flying fox facility funded by Servcorp and a wombat enclosure from Linda Meumann's Allowed to Grow Old with the International Fund for Animal Welfare. None of it is government money; the sanctuary has never had ongoing public funding. What Ben wants next, as he told local MP James Wallace and Mayor Warren Waddell on a visit in March, is a wildlife hospital and emergency response centre for Sydney's north west, a place that can train carers and vets and get a team to a fire or a flood with the gear on board. Meanwhile the sanctuary opens its gates for behind the scenes tours, so anyone can meet Casper and the dingoes for themselves.
Sources and links
Our short take: the sanctuary's story has been told by Claudia Butjerevic for The Post (2 April 2025), Diana Paton for Galston Community News (12 March 2026) and Sophie Poredos for Hills to Hawkesbury News (26 June 2024), with the produce run and the cool room from Harris Farm Markets' own Neighbourhood Goodness pages and the sponsors from Hills Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Hills Wildlife Sanctuary Visit, donate, tours.
- Caring for wildlife together, Harris Farm Markets Twice weekly produce and the cool room (10 February 2026).
- Harris Farm Neighbourhood Goodness 92 organisations and $150,000 in 2025.
- The struggles and vision of Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, by Claudia Butjerevic, The Post History, residents, sponsors, the hospital vision.
- Hills Wildlife Sanctuary: 50 years of wildlife rescue, by Diana Paton, Galston Community News March 2026, the MP and mayor visit, the hospital ask.
- Dural's best kept secret, by Sophie Poredos, Hills to Hawkesbury News Marjorie Wilson, the volunteers, Dr Audrey Shen, the dingoes, the tours.
