Tarcombe Wildlife Shelter and Dr Robyn Coy Have Lost Everything

Yesterday, the Longwood fire didn’t just destroy land. It erased a lifetime of devotion.

For more than six decades, Dr Robyn Coy, now 69 years old, has lived for one purpose only: to protect animals who had nowhere else to go. From childhood, Robyn has rescued, treated, fed, healed, and loved wildlife and livestock that others could not save. She never sought recognition, comfort, or security. She chose the animals, every single time.

Tarcombe Wildlife Shelter was not a business. It was not a hobby. It was a life lived in service.

Robyn lived simply so others could live at all. A camp toilet. Basic shelter. Long nights sleeping close to the animals she was caring for. She spent more time in the pit with injured and orphaned wildlife than she ever did thinking about herself. Horses, goats, lambs, kangaroos, joeys, a python, tawny frogmouths and countless others found safety behind her fences and in her care.

Yesterday, fire tore through everything.

Robyn watched as flames surrounded her animals. She saw them on fire. She saved what she could with her bare hands and her own body. She would have stayed. She would have died with them if her brothers had not physically come and taken her away.

As the firestorm descended, Robyn and her brothers sheltered in a dam, standing in the water as they watched her entire property burn around them. Everything she had built over a lifetime was consumed in front of her eyes.

She escaped with only her dog, three joeys, and one doe.

Every other animal is gone.

The kangaroos were surrounded by fire. The horses, goats, lambs, native wildlife, all lost. Not possessions. Lives.

The destruction goes beyond heartbreak. Over one million dollars in fencing, equipment, tractors, shelters, and livestock has been destroyed. Tarcombe was uninsured. Robyn has lost the land infrastructure that allowed her to help animals at all.

Now, even the street in Kilmore where Robyn has sought refuge is under threat from fire.

At 69 years old, after a lifetime of giving, Robyn has been left with nothing but grief, shock, and the animals she managed to carry out with her.

This fundraiser is not just about rebuilding fences or replacing equipment.

It is about honouring a woman who spent her entire life choosing compassion over comfort. Who never asked for help, never put herself first, and never turned an animal away.

Robyn has lost everything that mattered to her.

Please help us give something back.

Every donation will help Robyn survive this unimaginable loss and, in time, rebuild a place of safety for animals who will need her more than ever in the aftermath of these fires.

If you can give, please do.

If you can share, please share.

Yesterday, fire tore through everything.

Robyn watched as flames surrounded her animals. She saw them on fire. She saved what she could with her bare hands and her own body. She would have stayed. She would have died with them if her brothers had not physically come and taken her away.

As the firestorm descended, Robyn and her brothers sheltered in a dam, standing in the water as they watched her entire property burn around them. Everything she had built over a lifetime was consumed in front of her eyes.

She escaped with only her dog, three joeys, and one doe.

Every other animal is gone.

The kangaroos were surrounded by fire. The horses, goats, lambs, native wildlife, all lost. Not possessions. Lives.

The destruction goes beyond heartbreak. Over one million dollars in fencing, equipment, tractors, shelters, and livestock has been destroyed. Tarcombe was uninsured. Robyn has lost the land infrastructure that allowed her to help animals at all.

Now, even the street in Kilmore where Robyn has sought refuge is under threat from fire.

At 69 years old, after a lifetime of giving, Robyn has been left with nothing but grief, shock, and the animals she managed to carry out with her.

This fundraiser is not just about rebuilding fences or replacing equipment.

It is about honouring a woman who spent her entire life choosing compassion over comfort. Who never asked for help, never put herself first, and never turned an animal away.

Robyn has lost everything that mattered to her.

Please help us give something back.

Every donation will help Robyn survive this unimaginable loss and, in time, rebuild a place of safety for animals who will need her more than ever in the aftermath of these fires.

If you can give, please do.

If you can share, please share.