As some of you may have seen in the press, WRAS is having to prioritise calls to ensure we respond to the calls which need our help. Over the past 16 days WRAS has dealt with 324 incidents averaging 20 incidents a day. We have now passed 1,500 and are well over 500 on-site incidents up on this time last year.
We need to urgently expand and need your help. We need donations to cover the rise in veterinary bills, increase in fuel costs, and phone costs plus we need help to expand and urgently need to find places where we can erect aviaries and also a location where we can apply for planning permission for a new hospital unit, ideally in the Eastbourne, Hailsham or Seaford area. We do not mind paying a nominal rent either. If you can help at all please get in touch via e-mail trevor@wildlifeambulance.org or leave a message on the rescue line 07815 078234.

I have been asked by the Southdowns Badger Group to mention that there is going to be a National Badger Rally taking place on Saturday June 28 at 1pm outside the Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff. It is being organised by Viva! and more details can be found on their website www.viva.org.uk/badgers
After the rally there will be refreshments, a talk and stalls etc in the nearby Cardiff Bay Hotel from 2-4pm.The following is from Viva's website.
"Badgers are the face of the British countryside – harmless, loved, unique and secretive. It is extraordinary that they have managed to survive at all in a landscape that is so intensively farmed.
They face illegal trapping, baiting with dogs and 50,000 die on the roads each year. Now they face their biggest threat yet: the dairy industry. Badgers are accused by farmers of being the main culprits in spreading bovine TB. The real culprits are farming practices so intense that dairy cows face repeated infections from mastitis and laminitis and rarely survive beyond five-years-old. One-third of TB tests are inaccurate, allowing disease carriers to reinfect their herd or to be transported around the UK, infecting new herds.
"A £50M, 10-year, independent investigation by top scientists (ISG) concluded that: 'Badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the control of cattle TB'. Yet still farmers are calling for their pound of badger flesh.Thousands of animals will be hunted, trapped, caged and shot. It will be a wildlife massacre and to no purpose – other than mollifying farmers who refuse to change their ways.
"A report published the Badger Trust Cymru states that, 'Every major increase in bovine TB in Wales can be linked to the restocking of cattle and buying-in cattle to increase herd size. It would be political naivety of the highest order to replicate the Republic of Ireland's failed badger culling policy, yet that is exactly what the National Assembly for Wales is proposing'. Since 2002, the most intensive badger culling ever seen in the Republic of Ireland has failed to make any dent in the Republic's colossal bovine TB problem. Bovine TB in Wales increased by 177 per cent between 2000 and 2002 when farmers restocked with TB-infected cattle after foot and mouth disease. It cost Welsh taxpayers millions.
Their report concludes that, 'It is abundantly clear that badger culling has failed to control or eradicate bovine TB in the Republic of Ireland. Yet effective cattle-based measures have virtually halved the incidence in Northern Ireland over the same period and the downward trend continues. Despite this, the Welsh Assembly is sleep-walking into a badger cull on the unsupported premise that, by killing badgers, it will be able to eradicate bovine TB. Elin Jones must not make this disastrous mistake."

I would like to go to this rally myself but WRAS is extremely busy at the moment – if you are available, please do attend.

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.