Our response to the Coronavirus pandemic

As Dave and I both have underlying health conditions, with Dave’s putting him in the ‘vulnerable’ category, we’ve had to respond quite quickly and drastically to the threat posed by Covid19.

With effect from 12th March 2020 our operations have had to be strictly limited.

Pet Rodent Rescue

Initially, in terms of our work with pet rodents, all rehoming was suspended. This is because we are concerned about whether we can adequately assess new homes with the restrictions in place. Yes, we can do homing calls by phone or homechecks by Skype but we like to meet all of our adopters in person and see them interact with the animals to make sure it’s a good match. Keep in mind that we operate from our small home where it wouldn’t be possible for people to come in and for us to be 2 metres apart.

Given the difficulties involved in rehoming as a home based rescue, we will not be taking in any more rodents until the pandemic is totally over and all need for social distancing is gone.

Pigeon Rescue

We are managing to continue almost as normal with our pigeon work. Recovered birds can be delivered to our release aviaries using social distancing and new patients can be left in our porch (by prior arrangement). We are being a little careful about what we admit, being mindful that vet visits would be very risky for us at the moment, but we are able to handle most of the common illnesses and injuries we see here without needing vet visits.

Online work

This is unaffected and, in fact, we’ve been able to increase what we’re doing here by adding a ‘helpdesk’ function to HelpWildlife.co.uk which enables visitors to the site to quickly get in touch for bespoke advice and help with finding a wildlife rescue. This has coincided with the busiest time of year for wildlife rescues with lots of baby animals around so the helpdesk and facebook group are keeping us quite busy!

Fundraising

Very kindly, some supporters have been in touch to ask whether we are ok financially. Luckily, fundraising events such as fetes and fayres, have never been a significant part of our fundraising. Most of our income comes from single and regular donations. As such, our income is, so far, largely unaffected and we are lucky to have a small reserve in place which means our operating costs are covered for at least the rest of the year. Operating from home and with no staff keeps our costs low and Dave and I will always support the charity if needed.

Many rescues are not so lucky. They have rent to pay, animals needing surgeries and huge food bills, and their income is reliant on adoption donations and fundraising events. If you are in a position to, please consider making a donation to a rescue in this position.

As and when there are any changes to this, we’ll update this post.

Thanks

Sarah & Dave