WILDLIFE REHABILITA TION-DOES IT WORK?

摘要

Many people and resources are committed to rescuing injured and orphaned wildlife, but is it worth the effort? PAUL EVANS examines the realities of treating and releasing such animals back into the wild. IT'S A QUIET MORNING at Cuan House Wildlife Rescue in Shropshire. A pair of swans, one with a bandage on its dislocated wing, stand statuesquely on the lawn, around which hedgehogs and a baby rabbit convalesce in hutches. In a collection of cages and outbuildings at the bottom of the garden live a buzzard, a tawny owl, four pigeons, a sparrowhawk and another pair of swans. Inside the conservatory-sized animal hospital are containers holding a bat, a blackbird chick, a young collared dove and a hedgehog. Megan Morris-Jones, who has been running CuanHouse for the past 17 years, rushes in with a dead badger, phones to arrange a postmortem because she suspects it's been poisoned, then manoeuvres the swan with the dislocated wing into a carrying contraption -like a zipped-up shopping bag - to be takento the vet for examination.