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....................