When you come across a lizard on the road as you're driving along, most people will endeavour to position their car so it passes between the tyres. This may help for some animals but a lizard will rear up, raising their head, in an attempt to threaten the car. This inevitably results in harm.

In this particular case, the bearded dragon was lucky, sustaining only minor superficial injuries on top of his eye and swelling in his eye socket. In the care of Wildlife Rockhampton, he kept that eye closed for almost two weeks. We weren't sure if he'd ever see again but luckily the swelling went down and he started getting his sight back in week three.

He was very feisty dragon to look after but loved his food so his carer didn't have to do much handling once they got him eating. Thank goodness! He wouldn't think twice about puffing his beard out at us if he thought we were getting too close.

This dragon came from Alton Downs and thankfully his rescuer told us exactly where she found him. He's now been released and is no doubt happy to be home in familiar surrounds.

Moral of the story: if it's safe, take a few moments to stop and move animals away from the road. You will probably save their lives and also those of other animals like our beautiful wedge-tailed eagles that find "road kill" too hard to resist.

Wildlife Rescue Hotline 0429 GO WILD (24 hours)
www.wildliferockhampton.org.au