Quackers came into our animal shelter with broken legs. After an awesome recovery, Quackers was released today back to the pond closest to where he was found. I got to do the honour! As my first official release I got super excited and just wanted to share So, here is Quackers and I. He swam off happily, he seemed really at home! Now that Spring is here we are getting hoards of baby animals either lost, stolen or abandoned. We currently have a 2 week old badger cub that was taken from his burrow by a dog and a ten day old fox cub who was mistaken for a puppy! I can see a busy Spring and Summer ahead!
The badger is now around 4 months old, shes been placed into a set with other badgers her age that were rescued across London. They will be releases together in a few weeks. Can't pick her up anymore, she attacks your feet now! But she was so diddy, you can see the dog bite on her side. We now have 26 fox cubs, all either injured or unwell. After they turn 10 weeks, we can no longer talk to them, stroke them, make eye contact or be nice to them. We must hit their enclousure, make loud noises and scare them. This is to ensure they don't become tame whilst in our care, it is really hard to do but it gives them a better chance in their future. Too many people would do cruel things to them if they were to approach them, we can not allow them to want to be around humans, only a few humans would be nice. Good news, on Sunday just passed, we had our Spring open day. Our aim was to raise £1000 to put towards new fox enclousures due to the numbers we have coming in so frequently. We raised almost 10k!!!!!!!!! Amazing outcome! So so happy, and so happy to work here so closely with the animals. I love every moment Its not everyday you can say you nursed a duck to health and released him home or cuddled a baby badger!
We microchip most of them (usually foxes), so that if they come back to us at any point we can easily access their older records and get a quicker plan of action together. We don't track them once they are released though. Way too many to keep track of Right now we have 30+ ducklings, most came in all separately, but they've been put into groups to be released together.
Busy busy day so far.. horrible day. An adult fox bought in, practically dead, he had fly eggs all over him. Sadly could not be saved. Along with a heron whose bones were literally shattered and a gull who had similar injuries. 3 in one day Then someone dumped a cardboard box out front overnight, opened up to find 3 adult cats and 5 young kittens (4-5 weeks). They were starving, and out in the heat too were dehydrated. Sitting in a box of their own shit ..two babies are blind in one eye, and another is of ill health. All full of worms too. Kittens are understandably very timid and jumpy, but the adults are so friendly and lovely. One of the kittens here. 2 more kittens, both healthy but found by their dead mama at the roadside, also in today. On the + side, all cats/kittens will survive and will be extremely well looked after with us. Its nice to know that they can experience nice humans instead of thinking we are all cruel. Ps- I think I will use this thread to update and post about the shelter
