When Is A Wildlife Rescue Centre NOT A Wildlife Rescue Centre ?

 

Bristol is in a wildlife crisis.

Apart from the continued use of rodenticides by the City council and the number of foxes, otters and badgers killed and injured there is a wildlife r5escue problem.

Sarah Mills (The Bristol Fox Lady) has helped to reduce the number of fox deaths from mange and even help injured foxes with no official funding -she is also asked to occasionally answer calls for Secret World. Why? Secret World gets a lot of donations and just a look at the amount of money invested in its "wildlife hospital" shows something is not right.

Simply put,unless they ask Secret World is not interested in foxes etc in Bristol. It supposedly has a wildlife hospital but Bristol has had to rely on Vale Wildlife Hospital in Oxfordshire to treat and also release foxes.

People reporting manged foxes are advised to contact Fox Angels for their mange treatment -a group based on the other side of the country.

In the last few years I have heard it all from Secret World from requesting a put to sleep note from vets who say animals passed on to them just need rest to recuperate to "our fox pens are full" when they are not down to "We don't have any drivers/volunteers/ambulances to answer the calls"

In short Secret World is not fit for purpose. It goes out of its way to make it awkward for people reporting injured foxes. In most other parts of the country wildlife rescues treat foxes with broken legs but Secret World told three people who contacted me that "Any fox admitted with a leg injury is pts as standard". My brother reported a fox with a leg injury two years ago and was told the same so I, as a member of the public, phoned SW and reported a fox frequenting the garden with a leg injury. What was I told? "Best to let nature take its course. Any leg injury fox is pts as standard"

So what is going on? They have had volunteers who work hard and at anti-social hours but it seems that is no longer the case. Secret World needs to note on its website that it will not treat sick or injured foxes.

Either that or Secret World needs to actually DO what it claims it will do rather than be known amongst other UK rescues as "The PTS Centre of England" (I did not even know it was called that until a year ago.

Donators need to be told exactly what Secret World will do because having to get people from Oxfordshire to help or mange meds from the other side of the country raises a lot of questions.