Hedgehogs, hedgehogs & more hedgehogs.

Although the winter months are the quietest of the year for wildlife casualties, we are still kept very busy with dozens of underweight hedgehogs. Our Small Mammal Room is full of them at the moment, & a large part of the day is spent cleaning out, feeding & giving medications to our prickly friends. Hedgehogs are very prone to all sorts of infections & they invariably end up on antibiotics of some description. Over the years we have learned the most effective drugs to use on them as well as the dose necessary to have the desired effect, which is often an extremely high dose. If you are a hedgehog carer, or you know someone who is, we have just finished a new 'Hedgehog medication & doses chart', formulated by myself & our vet & anyone who is interested in having a copy can email me at caroline@vwr.org.uk

'Hedgehog Basic First Aid, Care & Rehabilitation' courses are now being run at Vale, organised & funded by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. Anyone interested in booking onto one of these courses should ring the BHPS on 01584 890801 for details.

Another year almost over.

Things in the Hospital have now become much quieter, which is normal for the approach of winter. All the staff here can now breath a sigh of relief & take things a bit easier now the spring & summer rush has finished for another year.

Although the numbers of most species coming in has greatly reduced, we are still taking in a large number of hedgehogs but again, it is normal for us to have a lot of autumn juveniles in over the winter months. These are mainly ones which haven't managed to put enough weight on to survive hibernation. They need to weigh well over 500gms as we get into the colder weather so if you are seeing any youngsters around it is worth giving them a quick weigh to make sure they are big enough. Also, if a hedgehog is out in the day, it is usually a sign that there is a problem, so pick him up, weigh him & then contact us or your nearest wildlife centre for advice.

It is now almost a year since we first started receiving our mystery, anonymous donations that I have written about before. Since we first started receiving them, a total of £8,540 has been very generously given by that person &, although we don't know who it is, we would like to thank him/her/them for their fantastic support, & I just hope that they are regular readers of this Blog.

Many thanks to you & also to everyone else who has given their support throughout the past, tough year. I just hope that 2010 proves to be a bit easier financially.

Ozzy on Autumnwatch

I don't know how many of you watch Autumnwatch Unsprung, but if you were watching last night you would have seen Ozzy the skunk live on national TV. We arrived at the studios about two & a half hours before we went on (don't quite know why we had to be so early) & everyone wanted to see her so she spent all that time lapping up all the attention. She behaved impecably......until Kate Humble asked to hold her when we were live. She promptly pooped all over Kate! That is why they say you should never work with children or animals. I think that is the end of Ozzy's TV career!

Otter cub progress

Becoming attached to a wildlife casualty is not supposed to happen, & most of the time we manage this just fine. But ocassionally, along comes an animal which just gets to you. Our little otter cub is one of those heartbreakers.

When he first came in he seemed to be fit & well. For the first week he made brilliant progress, no problems with feeding him, he put on loads of weight & went from 860gms on arrival to over 1300gms a week later.

Then it all started to go wrong, he started to lose weight, developed diarrhoea & started vomiting. Blood tests revealed that he had a bacterial infection so swabs were sent off to find out which antibiotic was needed to combat this. While we waited for the results, we started him on antibiotics anyway. So far all the test results have been negative although we are still waiting for some, but little otter cub deteriorated rapidly over the next few days, just fading in front of us despite all the many treatments we were administering to try to help him through.

A week later, he is still with us but still not good. He is on 2 different antibiotics, fluids & anti-sickness drugs & it is just so frustrating as we just don't know what else we can do.

Yes, this job can be extremely rewarding....but sometimes it can break your heart too!

How's this for cuteness??

Today's helping of the aaah factor is brought to you by this gorgeous, six week old otter cub. He was brought in a few days ago by the RSPCA after being found out alone near Worcester. He is perfectly healthy & is feeding really well - being bottle fed every 4 hours during the day & the tiny needles that he has for teeth have started to get through small pieces of trout (as well as my fingers ocassionally!)

Our dilemma is, what do we do with him now? The longer he stays with us, without others of his own kind to interact with, the more risk there is that he will become imprinted on people & will then be unreleasable. Our aim when dealing with any animal, for whatever reason, is to ultimately return it to its natural habitat. Therefore, our next task is to contact other wildlife centres to find out if anyone has otter cubs of a similar age that this little one can be with, so that he begins to realise that he is an otter.

Another otter in.....

...but not such a happy ending.

Today the RSPCA brought in another male otter. Before he arrived we had been told that he was not using his hind legs which is usually bad news. Spinal damage is the first thing that goes through our minds when we hear this.

When he was brought in I could see straight away that his back looked unnaturally arched & I had a feeling that his x-rays were going to reveal some damage there. I was right, 2 x-rays later & we could clearly see that his spine was severed. So sad, such a beautiful animal.

Of course, he had to be put to sleep & although this is never, ever an easy thing to do, at least with such a serious injury & no chance of recovery, you know that you are relieving the pain & suffering of the poor animal.

Swimming with humpback whales!

Fancy a week in the Caribbean, swimming with humpback whales & helping with research into them?

A friend of ours, Dr Ruth Searle, marine biologist & writer, is looking for volunteers prepared to pay to help with her research into these beautiful creatures in February/March 2010 in Silver Bank, off the coast of the Dominican Republic. You will collect data, take fluke ID photos, operate the hydrophone, record whale song, take GPS readings and help generally with research.

The week will be spent on board the Sun Dancer II, a 138 foot vessel carrying groups of a maximum of just 18 people (exc. crew).

Take a look at the website http://www.consciousbreathadventures.com/ to see the facilities aboard this fantastic vessel, as well as lots more information about humpbacks.

The cost of this once in a lifetime research trip will be approximately £1,900 per person, plus flights & crew tips. A lot of money I know, but Silver Bank is a truly beautiful place, you will be genuinely up close & personal with humpback whales & their calves & you will be helping with valuable research work at the same time.

If we can get a group of at least 6 people, there is a 10% discount per person.

For further information please contact me by email at caroline@vwr.org.uk

Nearing the end of a busy season

Today the last of our fox cubs were taken out to their release pen where they will stay for a week before being released into the wild. We have successfully reared & released 26 cubs this year & will have to wait until next March or April for it to start all over again.

The last cubs leaving here always seems to be a landmark for us at Vale - it marks the end of another busy spring & summer & the start of the quieter winter months when we can all take things a bit easier.

Two kestrels were also released today & the two muntjac deer which have been reared from only days old were due to go too but we ran out of time as it's been a busy day. They will be going in the next few days.

At the moment we have about a dozen baby & young grey squirrels in - not everyones favourite but we have no reds in this area (& no suitable habitat to support them) so they are no threat to them as they are in the few areas of red squirrels left in the country.

Quick Ozzy (the skunk) update - she is doing fine, putting on rather too much weight (we will have to put her on a diet soon!) & has now moved into her very plush, purpose-built apartment. She is really spoilt.
I would like to thank Gary Beers for taking these great pictures of my 2 muntjac fawns & one of our many grey squirrel youngsters.

Not a good day today

It was just one of those days today. Some days are really good, and you finish the day feeling that you have made a real difference. Other days, like today, you feel quite down and you wonder if there is really any point in battling all these problems us 'wonderful' humans cause to wildlife.

A beautiful hobby was brought in today, very small and pretty birds of prey that we rarely see. Sadly, she had a badly broken wing which was being eaten away by maggots and had to be put to sleep. Another patient, an adult female hedgehog was found on the road and, as an example of just how resilient wild animals are, we watched her wandering round and round in the cage, eating a bit and then going back to her walking again. There appeared to be only a slight swelling to her forehead, nothing else was obvious but I was suspicious of the swelling and decided to have her x-rayed. This revealed a large piece of her skull totally broken away (I won't go into any more detail about the injury) and I simply cannot believe that any animal could still be walking and eating with such a serious, horrendous injury. Obviously she also had to be put to sleep, another victim of our modern day world - hedgehog versus car, there is usually only one winner in this situation!

On a more cheerful note, we have released quite a number of mammals and birds lately including a grass snake that had been tangled in pond netting, two buzzards plus we have some more fox cubs going out to a release pen this weekend, so it's not all bad news!

Snared badger released

A badger, brought in by the RSPCA several weeks ago after being caught round his middle in a snare, was released last night. The 115 mile round trip to take him back to his territory was well worth it as it was obvious that he knew exactly where he was as soon as we arrived there & wasted no time in racing off along a well-used badger path.

When he arrived at Vale he was in a mess, the snare having cut into him all the way round his middle (& I have to add that this was a perfectly legal, free-running snare which, according to the users of such things, do not cause any physical damage). He needed many, many stitches to repair his wounds & a long course of antibiotics to prevent any infection.

Happy ending for this lucky badger though, it's just awful to think of all those other helpless animals which have suffered in snares - & I really hope that this one stays well away from any others in the future.

Ozzy update

Ozzy the skunk is still with us & she is doing really well. She's put on loads of weight & loves being picked up & fussed. She'd spend all day being carried round if we let her - trouble is we don't get much work done when she's out, she's very distracting, & unbelievably cute!!

About 70 hedgehogs in at the moment, mainly youngsters & about three quarters of them are now on antibiotics as they have infections. Hedgehogs seem to pick up all sorts of infections, especially intestinal, really easily, so this situation is not at all unusual.

We have been able to do a lot of releases lately too (in between rainy days!) Many of the birds that we took in several weeks ago as tiny, bald babies are now reaching the age where they need to go off & find their own territories & can cope without our help. This time of year is probably the most satisfying with everyone's hard work finally paying off with animals being released on a daily basis. Our 23 fox cubs will soon be off to their temporary release pens too & will be back in the wild where they belong in a few weeks.

More support from our mystery benefactor.

I just wanted to thank, once again, our mystery anonymous donor, who has now given Vale the amazing total of £6,220 since December 2008. We would love to know who you are, to be able to thank you in person & to let you know exactly how much your generosity has helped countless wild animals in these tough times.

Still busy

We are well into July, usually our busiest month of the year for casualty numbers and we are certainly very busy with a large number of birds in particular being brought in. Many, many catted fledgling birds and sadly too many coming in much too late for antibiotics to do any good. If a bird has been caught by a cat, even if there are no obvious injuries, they must receive life-saving antibiotic treatment within a few hours otherwise they are very likely to develop blood poisoning.

A very happy ending to one of our stories - the RTA male otter that we have been treating for a week made a full recovery and last Saturday we took him back for release at a fantastic site (pictured) not too far from where he was hit by a car. It was amazing to watch him go and although he was a bit reluctant to leave the carrying box initially, he soon realised that he was home and started exploring one of several pools that he was released into. A very happy ending.

A couple of exotics have been brought in lately by the RSPCA. Firstly, an Asian Water Dragon, a stray found in someones garden and most recently, and probably the most unusual animal we have ever taken in, an American striped skunk!! Despite their reputation she is really cute, only a youngster and she has settled in well. She does smell a bit, but so far she hasn't used her main defence, spraying, and we are hoping she doesn't decide to start!!.

Video clip of our otter.

Video clip of the otter being fed this afternoon. Still making great progress & we are hoping he will be released in a couple of days. He certainly enjoys his trout!!

Click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QmvKCMd1hQ

Otter making progress

Supper time - taken tonight.

Otter update

The otter that was brought in by the RSPCA on Saturday was x-rayed this morning and I for one was not looking forward to the results.

Anaesthetising him to allow us to position him for the picture is a mammoth task in itself as otters are probably one of the most difficult species of British wildlife to handle. They have an incredibly nasty bite, they cannot be picked up by the scruff, as we would with a fox, as they are pure muscle and there is nothing to get hold of on the neck. A grasper is almost impossible to use on them (and we very rarely use them anyway as they are mostly unnecessary and cause a great deal of stress to the animal). They are so streamlined that they just slip straight through the grasper.

In the end he was quite obliging and went into the crush cage quite willingly, and I was then able to hold the anaesthetic mask over his face with hardly any resistence from him.

We (myself and Tim, our vet) then took 2 x-rays and, while he was knocked out, Tim took some blood from him to make sure he had no other problems.

Much to our relief, the x-rays didn't reveal any fractures or other problems and so we think that his unwillingness to use one front leg is simply because of soft tissue damage and is too painful to move.

He does seem to be improving slowly so we are treating him with anti-inflammatories, pain relief and antibiotics and will reassess in a few days.

This afternoon we took this picture of him flat out on his back where he had been sleeping peacefully until we went in to check on him.

Beautiful creature....

Following on from the excitement of having 3 peregrines in in just one week, when we seldom see them, another rarity for Vale Wildlife yeaterday was a beautiful adult male otter.

The RSPCA brought him in from Frampton-on-Severn in Gloucestershire where he had sadly been hit by a car the previous evening.

He had obviously sustained a blow to one side of his head & his shoulder area, although his injuries didn't look too serious at the initial examination. His one eye was red & inflamed & one of his teeth had been partially broken off, but no bones appeared to be broken so he was treated for shock, given antibiotics, & was settled into one of our badger pens, complete with infra-red heat light & a delicious trout!

This morning he looked a great deal brighter, although he had wasted our expensive trout (ungrateful otter!). He was given fresh water, as he had decided that his water tray would make an ideal toilet (!!), & we also put in a much larger water container to allow him to get right in & have a good bath if he wanted to.

Now he is more alert & active, we have noticed that he is not using his front legs properly, which is very worrying. It would be so sad if his injuries were too severe to treat - there are few enough of these beautiful creatures in the wild as it is. They are slowly making a comeback, now their habitats are getting cleaner, but we need every otter we can get to make sure that this trend continues.

We have now got to wait until tomorrow, when we will be x-raying him & our vet will be trying to find out what the problem is. Fingers crossed!!

To be continued....................

Peregrine photos

Here are a few of the photos that we took while examining the young peregrine from Worcester.

2 Peregrine Falcons in one day!

Firstly, a huge thank-you to everyone who came to our Open Day on Sunday & made it such a success. The weather was brilliant despite the forecast saying we would get heavy rain all day. I am sure the forecast must have put a lot of people off but the turnout was still very good & we took over £5,500 on the day! We are very grateful to all our staff & volunteers for the fantastic effort they all put into the day.

Next to our patients. We are now in the middle of our busiest time with dozens of new casualtires coming in every day. Despite 70% of our intake being birds, we very rarely see a peregrine falcon. Today, we have had two in! The first was a youngster from a well-known nest in Worcester city centre. This one is the first of the four chicks to have flown the nest, & was only on it's third flight when it was mobbed by a seagull & then by crows & magpies & ended up grounded, & according to the reports we had, injured.

It was taken to the police station & we collected it & brought it back to the Hospital for examination. Luckily it hadn't sustained any injuries at all, we think that the blood on its face was probably from its last meal! It was however, very stressed so it was put in one of our seclusion aviaries to calm down. We have now arranged to return it to its nest when it is dark so that it will not fly but will have the night to get over its ordeal & by the morning it should be back to normal.

The second one, a male, was brought in this afternoon with a serious wing injury. Unfortunately the wing was dislocated at the carpal joint & the tendons had been torn so we had no alternative but to put it to sleep. The bird had a BTO ring on & when we contacted them they told us that it was a 10-year old male - very sad.

Hugh Warwick

Hugh Warwick, renowned author & hedgehog fanatic has confirmed that he will be attending our Open Day this coming Sunday (7th June). He will be giving an illustrated talk on hedgehogs as well as signing copies of his brilliant new book 'A Prickly Affair'.

Please come along & support us from 11am-4pm.

This will be your only chance to see what goes on behind the scenes in the Hospital & to see all the baby birds & mammals being hand-fed & looked after by our staff & volunteers.

Help us to celebrate 25 years of wildlife rescue

As well as being extremely busy in the hospital at the moment with baby birds & mammals coming in by the dozen, we are also trying to organise our 25th Anniversary Open Day which is being held at the Centre on Sunday 7th June.

We are hoping for good weather & need as many people as possible to come along on the day to help us celebrate this special milestone. Finances are strained this year, mainly because of the current global recession, donations are down & all charities are feeling the pinch. Show your support for our work by joining us on the day, see behind the scenes inside our Hospital, where we are looking after around 300 animals at the moment.

There will be loads of attractions: slideshows, charity stalls, loads of games for the children, fun dog show, raffle, tombolas, beer tent, cider, refreshments, live music, birds of prey static display, crafts & much, much more.

The day will run from 11am - 4pm so please, please show us your support & help us to make it a day to remember.

Leveret release 6 May 2009

Below are before and after photos showing a leveret when it first came in to the centre about 2 months ago aged just a couple of days old, and photos taken today when we took him for release at Slimbridge.

It was amazing to see him free in the fields, instinctively hiding in patches of long grass and behind mounds and tussocks, dashing between them, keeping low to the ground when he was out in the open. Considering he had never seen open spaces in his life, it just proved that most of a wild animals behaviour is instinctive and doesn't need to be taught, just perfected with time.

The release of an animal that has had so much time and effort put into it truly is the best part of wildlife rehabilitation.

Badly injured muntjac fawn

We have now had a third muntjac deer fawn brought in, I estimate only 10-14 days old. He has been badly attacked by something, my guess being a dog but I can't be sure. He has some bite wounds to his head and neck which aren't too serious but he also has a fractured skull which makes the prognosis for his survival pretty poor.
Feeding him is the most difficult task as I have to be so careful when handling him because of his head injury and he gets so stressed when he is handled that it has been impossible to bottle feed him like the other two muntjacs we have. At the moment he has to be anaesthetised in order for us to tube feed him without causing him too much stress.
I will keep you updated on his progress and we are all keeping our fingers crossed but I am not getting my hopes up too much.

A word of warning...again. Please DO NOT feed bread to birds in your garden. We have had three cases lately where people have picked up a newly-fledged bird (when they should all have been left alone), and fed them bread for over 24 hours before bringing them in to us. Bread does them no good at all, in fact it can often kill a bird, especially if this is all it is fed. If a bird really does need rescuing, get it to a rescue centre immediately where it will be fed the correct food from the start.

Babies, babies everywhere!!

Things are really starting to get busier now and combined with the fact that we are now 2 staff down, I think that the coming busy season will put us all to the test.

We now have eleven fox cubs and amongst the other youngsters we have in at the moment are baby squirrels, two muntjac deer fawns, baby blackbirds and robins and several baby pigeons, all needing regular hand feeds. This is besides the adult casualties that we are dealing with every day.

Natalie & Helen's Arctic Trek

Natalie and Helen left for their 250km Arctic husky trek last Saturday and we had a text from them on Sunday just before they lost signal going up into the mountains.
We had another text this morning (they got a signal on the phone very briefly). They said it's been very hard, trekking about 50km every day, and is so cold at night that their sleeping bags and their hair freezes!
It is their last night under canvas tonight as tomorrow night they are in a hotel having their first shower and first proper meal for a week.
We are very proud of what they have done to help Vale - maybe it will inspire other people to undertake a sponsored event for us.

Here we go....spring again!

Well, fox cub number 6 came in today, a tiny little thing with eyes still shut. It was found under a shed, and from the sound of it, it should have been left exactly where it was. Unfortunately as the cub was passed to us third hand we have no finder details, otherwise we could have taken it back.

We already have three cubs of about the same age which came in when they were only about 2 days old. These are being bottle fed every three hours and are making great progress despite a bit of chestiness when they first came in.

We also have two older fox cubs, a badger cub (pictured) and our first fledgling blackbird was brought in today too. It won't be long now before our rooms are bursting at the seams with young mouths shouting for food!!

First 2009 Fox Cub

We have now taken in our first fox cub of the year. We normally start to get them in during March, although we have had them in as early as the beginning of February before.

This little female cub was found on her own with no sign of any siblings or her mum. She is much too young to be without the vixen so the finder had no choice but to take her in. In this case it was the right thing to do, but often, young fox cubs should be left alone. If in any doubt, ring us or your local wildlife rescue centre for advice.

We really need to get another cub of a similar age with her as soon as possible to avoid her becoming imprinted on people, which is difficult to avoid when hand-rearing a single animal. If we do not get another one in soon, we will have to consider finding another centre with similar aged cubs that we can pass her on to.

We have also had a fledgling tawny owl in which was found sitting on a trampoline beneath a huge tree. Although tawnys are well known for their ability to climb back up trees to their nests, there was no way that this one would have got to that height and it was far too high for us to get him back there.

Despite his fall, he was totally uninjured and is doing very well with us, now feeding himself. We will shortly be passing him on to The Barn Owl Centre where they have adult tawny owls which adopt any youngsters which are put with them. This is obviously much better for the youngster and he will eventually be released back into the wild, probably with other young tawny owls.

Difficult times...please help!

The recession is taking its toll on all charities although the larger ones often have large reserves to fall back on in difficult times.Small charities such as ours have no such safety net, and with donations down by about 30% so far this year, we are getting very worried for the future.Please help us to continue our work and to get through this financial nightmare.

Get all your friends to support us too.How about organising a fundraiser in aid of Vale? A sponsored event, a coffee morning, a jumble sale or some other way of raising a few pounds. Every little helps!

We will celebrate 25 years of helping Britain's wildlife in June, please help us to make sure we reach our 26th birthday too!!

Please call us for advice if you have any concerns at all about wildlife, we will be happy to take your call and will give the best advice we can.

Thank-you all for your support - please get everyone you know to support us and tell everyone about our 25th Anniversary Open Day on Sunday 07 June 2009.

Countdown to the 'Mad Season'

Well, the baby bird and mammal season is looming once again and before very long our Hospital will be brimming with tiny mouths calling out to be fed every few minutes. We have all been enjoying the quiet (ish!) winter months but we are now gearing up for the intake of the majority of our annual patient total which come in between April and August.

We could see fox or badger cubs any time now with baby birds starting to hatch towards the end of next month.

One plea before the madness starts: Please, please if you think you have found an abandoned wildlife baby, ring your nearest wildlife centre for advice before picking it up. More often than not it will not have been abandoned but the parent will not come back to it while you are anywhere near. Many baby birds will spend several days on the ground when they first leave the nest, before they start to fly properly, deer fawns will be left sometimes for many hours while mum goes off to forage for food. They should not be touched.

A majority of the baby birds brought in to us have been caught by cats. Please try to keep cats in if you know there are baby birds around, but if your cat does manage to catch one, please take it to a rescue centre as soon as possible as it is vital that the bird receives antibiotics within a few hours for it to stand any chance of survival.

Please call us for advice if you have any concerns at all about wildlife, we will be happy to take your call and will give the best advice we can.

No updates for a couple of weeks

This will be the last post for a couple of weeks but I will be back then to update everyone on what has been going on at Vale.

Things will start to get busier in a few weeks and I am hoping to be able to update the site at least a couple of times a week.

Please carry our number with you when you are out and about (01386 882288) - you never know when you will need us, even just to ask our advice.

Don't forget to spread the word about our 25th Anniversary Open Day on Sunday 7th June!!

And make sure you find us on Facebook and join the growing membership on there.

Back in a couple of weeks.

2009 so far...

We have now taken in over 70 casualties this year, which is a considerable number for the winter months, which is our quietest time of the year.

We have treated several foxes, mostly as a result of road accidents. We have also dealt with a few deer, again after collisions with cars.

A sparrowhawk was brought in after colliding with a window, suffering from concussion. After treatment and a couple of days recuperation, she was released back where she was found.

More underweight hedgehogs have been brought in and these are now tucking into regular supplies of cat and dog food, putting on weight, and will be released when the weather improves.

We are also busy organising our 25th Anniversary Open Day, to be held on Sunday 07 June 2009. It's hard to believe that it was so many years ago that I took in that very first tawny owl, the beginnings of Vale Wildlife.

Please tell all your friends about the Open Day and help us to make it a day to remember!

If you haven't already joined us on our Facebook page, please support us today and join by clicking on the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=38936858194

Busy start & worrying future....

We have already dealt with quite a few mammals and birds in 2009 so it looks like being a busy year, particularly if we get the good summer (at last) which is being forecast.

Vale's name also seems to be reaching further afield as we are getting an ever-increasing number of calls from people all over the country as well as from vets and other rescue centres and wildlife hospitals seeking advice.

We have had quite a big mention in writer Hugh Warwick's new book 'A Prickly Affair, My Life With Hedgehogs' and have already received calls for advice from people who have read about us in it.

We are always happy to help whenever we can.

My biggest worry at the present time is the credit crunch. Although the takings in our local charity shop are up by about 20% as people are tending to buy more second-hand clothes and other goods, financial donations made to Vale have gone down quite considerably and if the current trend continues it will not take very long for us to start struggling. Although we are grateful to everyone who continues to support us financially, including the anonymous donor who has now sent us 3 donations totalling £720 (thank-you, whoever you are!!), we need all of you to remember our wildlife through these difficult times.

Casualty No. 1 of 2009

The very first casualty of 2009 was a fox, brought in by the RSPCA after it was found tangled in netting.

Wildlife often gets itself into trouble around netting of all kinds, garden netting, football and tennis nets, netting covering ponds, they all make good traps for unsuspecting animals going about their business.

It is a good idea to try to make sure nets are kept away from where they can cause problems - games nets should be taken down or tied up out of the way when not in use and other types should be regularly checked to make sure nothing is trapped in them.

This fox was lucky and lives to see at least a bit more of this New Year. He was carefully untangled from the net at the Hospital and as there were no injuries, he was taken straight back to where he came from and released back into the wild.