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.