CHARITY
SAVING BAMBI – HOW YOU CAN HELP As Somerset’s Secret World Wildlife Rescue Centre launches an urgent appeal for a new treatment centre in Highbridge, we hear how it saved the life of one small fawn, a moving illustration of the fantastic work done by this charity. One very wet day last spring a small fawn was brought in to wildlife rescue centre Secret World. She was given the name Bonnie. Bonnie had lost her mother. She was cold and hungry and might not have survived long but for the rescue centre, and for Charlotte, one of the typically dedicated animal staff and volunteers who work at what is one of Britain’s finest wildlife rescue centres. Hour after patient hour, Charlotte cared for the orphaned animal: initially tempting her with small dribbles of milk (different from her mother’s milk), then getting her to suckle from a syringe, then listening out for her peeping when it was time for another feed. After several months of such loving and timedemanding care, Bonnie is now fit and healthy and has just been moved from Secret World’s fawn unit to a specialist release site - and from there she’ll soon be back in her natural habitat. That is just one of the many, many success stories of this remarkable wildlife rescue centre, that counts among its patrons, broadcasters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan, and author Jilly Cooper. All of whom are firmly behind an appeal launched today to raise the money to build a new Wildlife Treatment Centre at Secret World at Highbridge in Somerset. Plans for the new build were already in place at the start of 2020, but, like everyone else, SWWR has been greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The charity’s staff were fortunately classed as essential 30
workers, and all through lockdown cared for hundreds of wild animals from the small to the not-so-small, like Bonnie. But, fundraising events that it was hoped would raise over £100,000 had to be cancelled, leaving a shortfall in the money desperately needed not just for the new build, but also to run the Centre. Work needs to start in just a few weeks’ time, so that the Treatment Centre will be ready next summer for SWWR’s ongoing work of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing wildlife. “Our staff have been amazing,” said Pauline Kidner, the charity Founder. “We have realized that we have rescued over 100,000 wildlife casualties since we started in 1992. We have been working in porta cabins for the last four years, for which we only have planning permission until the end of the year. It is therefore paramount that the building begins in November, and we need urgently to raise the funds to allow that to happen.” Everyone who donates to this appeal will have their name on a special collage. “Whether you gave £2 or £10 or £1,000 it will go on there, because we know that the £2 is just as important as the larger amounts of money”, said Pauline. If you would like to know more about the appeal, you can visit www.secretworld.org or ring 01278 768707. You can also email pauline.kidner@secretworld.org. Pauline is Founder of the charity.
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