Tim has been with us for the past eight months undertaking wildlife rescue work and previously has been involved in wildlife and animal rescue abroad. Tim has learnt a lot in a very short period of time, especially in the treatment of wildlife casualties and is continuing WRAS's policy of working with neighbouring organisations and seeking advice as well as gaining knowledge from their experiences.

Last week I had a very unusual call and at first I thought it might have been a hoax, but the Spanish sounding lady who called me at 4am was obviously very concerned about a hedgehog-like creature which she had found in Brazil. It was quite a surprise for me and certainly her English was better than my Spanish. I was a bit unsure how to advise her at first but thought she needed to get the creature checked over by someone who has some veterinary experience.
I advised her to try and find a vet and try contacting any local animal parks or zoos if there were not veterinary practices in the area. I gave her some general advice on how we look after it and how to keep it comfortable and stress-free. She seemed pleased with this. It appears she got my number from the internet.

If you haven't already had a look visit www.wildlifeambulance.org
The news is updated every few days and press releases and media articles can be found there. We have a selection of pictures and we hope to add some more video clips to the website shortly. There are of course advisory pages about casualties and what to do if you find one.

Luckily we seem not to have had any oiled seabirds in yet. Normally by now we would have had numerous birds picked up but as yet nothing – which is good news.

January is always a busy time of the year for foxes. I was called to a fox at Hellingly on Saturday, not far from the old railway station. The fox was limping badly on a rear leg and very lethargic. Normally foxes with these types of conditions are very difficult to catch, but I decided to give it try. I managed to run about as fast as the fox could but luckily it became stuck as it tried to climb through some stock fencing – the injured leg causing the poor creature problems.
I managed to grab hold of the fox's tail – not recommended normally – and then used a net to pin the fox to the fence and catch it. At the vets we could see the wounds better and they looked very much like the teeth marks of a terrior or another smaller dog – although you can never be 100% sure. They certainly were not fox or badger bite marks. The fox was placed on a drip as he was very dehydrated. He is now in our unit and we hope he will pull through but septicemia is always a big worry with these badly infected wounds.

Tony dealt with a fox which had fallen down into the basement of a house in Hove as well on Saturday. The fox was very lively and certainly not injured. After some effort Tony managed to catch the fox using a dog grasper. It was not safe to release the fox during the daytime so the fox was treated to some five star treatment at our Horsebridge unit and given some good food then released late Sunday night.

East Sussex WRAS is a voluntary organisation which relies on donations. We do not receive funding from government nor the RSPCA. Anyone wishing to make a donation should contact WRAS's treasurer Peter Mortimer at Ash Cottage, 73 Friday Street, Eastbourne, BN23 8AY. www.wildlifeambulance.org 24-hour rescue line: 07815 078 234.