Usually the Safe Haven Australian Animals Care and Education (AACE) is a bustling hub of burrowing marsupials and chattering school children, but the centre and its donation tins have been quiet since coronavirus restrictions limited its operation.
Volunteers at the Mount Larcom centre look after 23 wombats, nine kangaroos joeys and other native animals which have been rescued.
The site also operates as a research centre, with studies looking into wombats' reproductive habits.
Affected by drought, the devastating 2018 central Queensland bushfires and now the coronavirus pandemic, the centre is running out of money.
Safe Haven project manager Tina Janssen said the centre relied entirely on donations, and there was just "a couple of months" of funding left.
"We've looked at all the grants and support that's been out there ... you need to have paid staff, and we don't fit that box so that leaves us high and dry," she said.
"We do private tours and set up for schools and groups as well, and of course we haven't been able to do that.
"It's been ongoing since the end of 2018, so probably the toughest times for us in 20 years, so this is probably our very hardest times that we've had.
"Our funds are getting to an all-time low at the moment and we have to be very careful what we're doing."
Ms Janssen said surplus animals would typically be given to zoo collections, but even that was not an option at the moment with many zoos closed due to the pandemic.
She said if the funding ran out, the wombats would be transported to Penong, near Ceduna, on the west coast of South Australia.
"If things don't improve soon, my option will be to take 23 wombats back to South Australia and manage them in a semi-free range and sort of put our research to bed for a while," Ms Janssen said.
"We bought that because it had a good population of wild wombats for us to be able to do some very important research, so that might be our option now, that might be our backstop.
"I've got a couple of months, but the way things are going at the moment, our donation tins are at an all-time low."
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