We were called out by East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service who had been attempting to catch the pheasant with store staff. Tony and I attended and decided there was only one way to catch this bird and that was in the dark. So with the added assistance of Newhaven Fire Service's thermal image camera to help in the dark, the pheasant was encouraged to fly from its 30ft high perch. In the dark the bird was unable to see very well and after hitting a couple of the lightweight plastic aisle banners, the pheasant landed on the top shelf of the paint aisle. The bird was caught and taken back to our Casualty Care unit at Horsebridge for the night. Due to the heavy snow on the Saturday we had to delay the release until the Monday where the bird was released out on the fields at the back of the store.

We have had a couple of badger callouts this week, both suffering from territorial badger bites. The first from Brighton had to be driven all the way to Bexhill in order to receive emergency treatment as the out of hours emergency clinics in Brighton were all too busy to see it straight away. The badger is doing well and we hope it will make a full recovery.
Another badger from near St Anne's Road, Eastbourne, was picked up on Friday. This badger is now being treated at our care unit. Thanks to Jean's hard work looking after a road casualty badger at Bexhill, a female badger was released back into the wild on Sunday too.

Last week we were called to Tunbridge Wells to help a deer caught in the netting of a football goal which had been left up for the school holiday. Tim, Tony and I were present within 40 minutes of the call via Folly Wildlife Rescue. When we arrived the RSPCA was on site and asked us to take the lead as we are more experienced at dealing with deer. The deer was caught and held down whilst we cut the netting free. Luckily most of the netting was not tight and we were able to remove it easily and release it within 15 minutes.

This past weekend has seen most of our over-wintering hedgehogs go free. More than 32 hedgehogs have been released back into the wild at different locations ranging from Battle to Brighton including Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford. We would like to say thank you to everyone who has helped look after and over-winter these hedgehogs. This is more than we have ever been able to look after before, so thank you. We have two foxes have been released this week one in Eastbourne and another in Peacehaven, both of these casualties had spinal problems and vets said they would never walk again, but this is common in fox road casualties and WRAS was not prepared to give them up on them and this weekend it has been great to see them go free after their final veterinary check up.

ON Saturday night WRAS received a call from Network Rail after it found a sheep wandering along the railway line at Polegate. The sheep eventually walked right up to Polegate Railway Station. WRAS does not deal with domestic and agricultural animals as a general rule but as they were unable to get help from the RSPCA or any other organisation or local farmer, they called WRAS out of desperation. Tony attended and helped catch the sheep which was then taken to Barbi Keal's Animal Sanctuary at Bexhill. This is the second sheep which WRAS has been called to this week. The police called during the week after an injured sheep was found near Butcher's Hole Bottom near Friston Forest. They spent more than an hour trying to contact local farmers without any success so called WRAS out of desperation. However, a farmer arrived and removed the sheep just before rescuers arrived.

There is an open day at Horsebridge Vets on Saturday April 19. WRAS will be present but unfortunately we will not be able to open the doors to our Casualty Care Unit due to recuperating casualties.
However, there will be a display and volunteers present to explain what we do. Don't forget to visit our website to see how you can help support our work and some of the easy ways to fundraise, including ways donating and recycling your mobile phone to help WRAS.