If you love rabbits, why not go to the amazing The National Rabbit Festival here in Nottingham, we are going again this year along with 10 of our volunteers.
This chap was handed into a vets at the weekend, after he'd been hit by a car in a road accident. This young lamb received superficial external injuries and was unable to use his rear legs. X-rays have not revealed any major internal issues, he was then transferred into our care. Further examination confirmed he has reflex reactions and feels pain in the paralysed rear legs, this is a positive sign. It is possible that the paralysis is caused by a displaced lumbar disc or hematoma (bleed) pushing on the sciatic nerve, if so, this can recover very slowly over time, he may even make a full recovery. It could also be permanent nerve damage which would mean he will never recover. Jamie is content with eating grass, receiving medication and physiotherapy from us, we hope so much that we can turn this tragedy into hope and a new life for little Jamie.
Leslie was first off the start line this morning, he is completing a bike ride challenge from the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, across the country to Weston Super Mare. Leslie is doing this to help fund our wildlife hospital, will you please help by sponsoring Leslie take this challenge?
Another Kestral admission.
This hoglet was one of three separate hoglet admissions yesterday, all weighing in at around 100 grams, at this age they should be with thier mothers. This chap arrived under temperature, with flystrike and riddled with fleas. The priority to save him was to get his body temperature up by housing him in an incubator. Fly-strike is fly eggs that hatch into maggots. Flies lay thier eggs on dead, dying or diseased animals, they are attracted by the smell of decay or infection. Soon the eggs hatch into maggots which eat their host, hence the next priority was to remove the fly eggs and fleas. With the ectoparasites (external) treated, we will check a faecal sample under the microscope to check for any endoparasites (internal). If we see any endoparasites we can identify and target treat. Today they are eating, a great sign of recovering.
If you have rabbits, you might want to attend the National Rabbit Festival here in Nottingham again. A great informative day out, lots to see and talks to attend. We'll be there with a gang of our volunteers.
Another 10 mallard ducklings released into the wild today, these were all orphaned and have been hand reared.
Not all of our wildlife rescues have happy endings, after all if you can capture a wild animal, something is seriously wrong. Yesterday we had a rescue which we found quite upsetting, we could not save this young fox, what we could do though is to end his pain and suffering. We were sent this video by a member of the public where you can see the fox attempting to get away by dragging his backend, he was clearly suffering, so we had to try to help. We have a very limited capacity to attend rescues like this due to a lack of resources, thankfully one of our volunteers managed to leave work, capture the fox and head straight to our vets. After being gassed down, x-rays and an examination, we weren't very hopeful, we were expecting trauma from an accident such as a road traffic accident, but we were not prepared to find that this was a deliberate act. The fox had in fact been shot and left to slowly die. He had a shot lodged in a leg which was severely swollen and there were shot exit wounds. This poor chap would have been in such pain and stress, slowly suffering and had we not intervened, they would have slowly died over a substantial period. We find it hard to believe that, whilst we all work tirelessly in our spare time to help proactively native wildlife, others could deliberately inflict such suffering on a beautiful, native, sentient being.
This young kestrel arrived this week, they aren't far of fledgling, they were found quite vulnerable running around a golf course. When they arrived, naturally they see us as a threat which can make feeding quite challenging, thankfully whilst very weary of us, they are feeding well.
Please sponsor Leslie who is raising funds for our wildlife hospital, by completing a bike ride challenge from the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, across the country to Weston Super Mare
When injured wildlife is admitted we have to initially assess the viability of a successful release, is there a realistic chance of a full recovery and being able to be released, taking into account the stress the animal will endure whilst in captivity receiving treatment. This process is continual, we assess every day, looking for improvements and assessing any changes needed in their treatment plans. We always make the decision to continue or euthanise, based in the best interest of the animal. In this case, we made the right decision in this buzzard's rehabilitation, he was released back into the wild last weekend. The buzzard arrived with some nasty injuries to his head and body, on top of these injuries he had no use of his right leg. They were initially admitted to another rescue in Essex, who provided triage, a full assessment including x-rays and provided the initial treatment. As we have a past record of successful bird of prey rehabilitation, they asked us to continue with the treatment. They arrived needing daily treatment for the wounds, they needed to be force fed and medication including pain relief. A couple of weeks in and they were eating themselves and so it was time to move to an aviary to help destress and continue recovery. Slowly and progressively they improved, they started using the leg fully, they could fly, perch, eat prey, it was time to let them go!!! We love happy endings like this!
Our Heron rescue makes the news.
We had a great open day on Sunday, thank you to all of our hard working volunteers that made this possible, to all of the companies who donated raffle prizes, beer and items to sell, thank you to everyone who came to support the day. After running costs such as our event insurance, toilet hire, Events License etc, we raised just over £5,000. As we are all volunteers and the land and buildings are donated free of charge to the charity by Jon and Beth, the £5,000 goes a long way in helping the charity save lives. Thank you !!