What we could do with a lottery win....

56 million pounds, the latest lottery windfall won by a Gloucestershire couple.

It's very difficult not to sound bitter - I am not bitter, it is just so sad that so many, many charities struggle to raise enough money to continue their work, and in our line of work I have seen many people forced to give up helping sick and injured wildlife because of the effects of the recession, and people win these absolutely ridiculous amounts of money. A life-changing amount is one thing, but these wins could be life-changing for so many more people and organisations, not just one person.

With our running costs as they stand at the moment, that win would pay for Vale for the next 224 years!! With a small part of it, we could build our Education Centre, buy all the equipment that we need, kit out the Hospital with new cages, pay decent wages, employ extra staff, I could go on and on - oh, and not have to spend all our time worrying about where the next month's running costs are going to come from!!

Perhaps I am just a little bitter - sorry!

Pet food appeal

It's January, the quietest month of the year at Vale, but we are getting through around 600 tins of dog & cat food every single week! 90 hedgehogs plus foxes, gulls & corvids are all responsible for devouring so many tins.

Our shelves are almost empty & having to buy so much food at a time of year when fundraising is the hardest is draining our meagre rescources. Please help by sending a donation or by bringing in a few tins if you live close enough to us. Donations can also be made by visiting our website at http://www.vwr.org.uk

Please help us out at this difficult time.

Thank-you.

Winter wildlife

Give a thought to our poor wildlife in this freezing weather. We have had 2 call-outs so far today:
The first was to a cygnet in Pershore, sitting on ice looking decidedly unwell where it had been since at least the night before. I am surprised it survived the freezing night time temperatures. Our vet checked it over, its temperature was over 4 degrees lower than normal & it was very lethargic. Wildlife is having great difficulty finding food with everything covered in thick snow so please make sure that you are putting as much variety of food out as possible & don't forget the water too.
The cygnet was given 300mls of warmed fluids subcutaneously & is now in our nice warm brooder room where its temperature is gradually increasing.
The second call-out was to a muntjac deer fawn, a tiny little female aged about 3-4 days!! She weighs just over 1 kilo & had been caught by a dog. We cannot see any major injuries on her but she is in shock, one of the biggest killers of wildlife, especially deer. She has been tubed some milk replacer & is now in one of our intensive care brooders, slowly warming up. We will keep our fingers crossed for both of these winter casualties.

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