Busy week with sick, injured and orphaned wild animals

Our Orphan Rooms are very busy at the moment with sick, injured and orphaned wild animals and birds coming in every day in need of care and attention.
Some of the rescued ducklingsSome of the rescued ducklings
Some of the rescued ducklings

From little blue tits, robins and black birds to cygnets, owlets, fox cubs, hedgehogs and baby bunnies, we help look after a wide variety of our local wildlife. Our volunteers and staff are working exceptionally hard round the clock to help as many people and casualties as possible, but we don’t have a bottomless pit of money to fund this vital work, so please help support us to keep our service on the road and help wildlife in need.

So please if you can make a donation to help support our Orphan Team please go to our website www.wildlifeambulance.org or justgiving page https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/eastsussexwras/orphanseason2017

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After the horrendous incident last week of the pigeon found in a bin, I am pleased to say that Stig the pigeon is improving.

On Thusday last week I was called to Viking Way in Eastbourne to rescue an animal in black bag and what I found was shocking as I pulled an extremely frightened and badly injured bloodied pigeon from the bag. The poor creature was terrified and jumped at the slighted movement and touch. He is calming down but still very traumatised but the swelling is going down and he is starting to improve.

My gut feeling is that someone had tried to kill the bird by knocking over the head, but they have been unsuccessful in doing so. They probably thought the bird was dead when it was just unconscious and as the bird has come round it found itself inside a black bag in a metal bin.

We are getting a lot of calls about pigeon in netting and to be honest, we are getting rather sick and tired of building owners erecting netting and then neglecting the netting which turns into an eye-sore, encourages pigeons to roost and ends up with birds being caught an injured or killed. Its not just pigeons and gulls which get caught either.

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We have had owls, kingfishers and other birds of prey too. The RSPCA website asks people to report incidents of dead birds caught in netting to them saying, if you have seen dead birds in netting, or where you are aware of a regular issue of birds becoming trapped in netting, they would be grateful if you could let them know the address and postcode, the owner of the property if known and the dates of any incidents which have occurred.

This information should be e-mailed to them at [email protected]. They will then write to the owner of the property to ask them to inspect their netting more frequently and to improve their maintenance schedule to prevent the problem reoccurring. We have had a lovely dormouse come into care from Battle this week. The poor creature has some swelling to its head after being caught by a cat but he is in our mammal room being looked after very well and we hope he will make a speedie recovery.

Also in our orphan room is a lovely young owl, found on the ground by a dog which picked it up in Hurstpierpoint. He is eating very well and responding to treatment but still early days.

The fox which we rescued on the A27 at Falmer a couple of weeks ago has now been released back to the wild. Chris, Laura and I released the fox about 1am just nort of the Falmer junction away from the road and let him run off back home.

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He clearly knew where he was and was glad to be home. We decided to release him at 1am on a Monday morning which is generally the quietest time of the week for this type of release.

We have had a number of ducklings come into care this week. Its that time of year when ducks are nestling and hatching their young.

We are getting quite a few calls from people who are finding that they have ducks nesting in their gardens.

This is quite normal for ducks to do and once the young are a few days old they will walk them to a near by pond and stream.

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They are protected while nesting so we are not able to interfere or move them.

However if they start wandering along a busy road them please call us and we will see what we can do to get there quickly enough to help them out.

For all rescue and wildlife advice please contact WRAS’s duty co-ordinator on 07815 078 234 (24hrs for emergency calls or 10am-7pm for non-emergency calls and advice).

Please leave a message on the answer phone and we will attempt to return urgent calls within 15 minutes, during busy times this is not always possible. Please listen carefully to the message on the answer phone and follow any instructions given.

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