The ACT Wildlife coordinator said it's often easier just to spend her own money, a choice other volunteers frequently make.

Ms Butcher is hoping this year's upcoming ACT budget has regular funding for groups like hers, even if it's just to cover food costs.

"It would be nice not to worry about those costs," Ms Butcher said.

She said the organisation dreams of having a dedicated 24/7 wildlife veterinary clinic, where they can treat injured wildlife without having to rely on the kindness of local vets who often donate their services.

"It's a big dream," she said.

"I couldn't even pluck a figure out of my mind."

Last year, the group started its wombat mange treatment program which had added more costs.

"It's roughly $20 a burrow," Ms Butcher said.

"You could need to treat 100 or 200 burrows in an area."

Ms Butcher said no one had any idea of the scale of the Canberra region's mange problem, but she said the cost of doing a proper audit was stopping the group from doing one themselves.

She said the organisation's volunteers often had a high "burn out" rate.

"Say you volunteer for something like Meals on Wheels ... then you discovered that you had to go out and buy the food and cook it yourself," Ms Butcher said.

"People care about the vulnerable wildlife but quite often there's huge personal time involved."

The group recently submitted its annual report to an ACT parliamentary inquiry on nature.

The report showed the group had seen an overall drop in the number of animals coming into its care, taking in 1591 animals in 2018, down 46 per cent from last year.

Ms Butcher attributed part of this to drought conditions reducing the region's wildlife numbers but also better triage process by its phone operators.

The group was still seeing a similar number of calls, but better training had helped volunteers assess an animal's needs.