Seal of approval...

Being one of the UK's largest wildlife rehabilitation hospitals, Stapeley takes in its fair share of Grey Seals from all over the North West. Whether they've been found beached or injured, the team here are always prepared to provide these guys with all of the care they need in order to recouperate enough to be released back into the wild.

Due to their strong bite potential (Google seal finger if you want to be grossed out), students have to be supervised when cleaning these guys out or feeding them. See below photo for a very ~marginally~ angry seal.

Despite their potential for a bad rep, they're usually pretty calm and are more than happy to just observe you with those huge eyes as you scrub their pool around them. Rarely in the centre for more than a couple of weeks, all seals pictured here have already been released back to the areas that they were found (After being confirmed healthy and ready of course!).

The most common reason for seal pups being bought into centres is that people mistakenly think they've been abandoned. If you see a seal pup alone that looks otherwise fit and healthy, and is showing no signs of distress, monitor it from a safe distance for 24 hours before calling it in.

If the mother does not return within 24 hours or the pup looks sick or injured, please call the RSPCA on 0300 1234 999.

Chelsie Hirons-Major
Student Placement
To support the ongoing work of the wildlife hospital, during this extremely difficult time, please donate to the Wildlife JustGiving site.

Foxy Business

Time to tell you all about one of the least popular jobs at the centre: cleaning out the fox runs.

Not a job for the faint-hearted, scrubbing these guys' pens is a gruelling 2 hour workout first thing in the morning. I'm very thankful for my facemask when it comes to this job...

There's no special technique for this one, it really is just a case of scrubbing with disinfectant and giving them a really good hose down. On the hotter days the cool spray from the hose is a welcome relief!

Sadly though, the harsh reality of Wildlife Rehabilitation is that it doesn't always work out and sometimes we have to make tough decisions. Our animals have to remain wild so our approcah to looking after the animals is always a 'hands off' one. Which is criticial, especially for our cheeky fox cubs who will be going back to the wild soon.

The Centre is getting busier by the day, as the summer goes on. The team at the centre has to put in more and more work to make sure that all the animals in care aretaken care of and prepared as best they can be for a return to the wild. This means increasing vet bills, food bills and staff workloads!

Please consider donating or volunteering some of your own time to helping out animals in need, I promise you, you won't regret it.

Chelsie Hirons-Major
Student Placement
To support the ongoing work of the wildlife hospital, during this extremely difficult time, please donate to the Wildlife JustGiving site.

This week at the centre was one of overall success for the animals on site. After the uncertainty of the Buzzards last week, it was nice to see hard-work paying off for the students in the form of releasing some of the hospital's inmates! The team had a hand in releasing lots of birds including a group of Herring and Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, and some Woodies that you can see us releasing on site in the videos below :)

This is Abby - one of our year-long placement students currently on site.

Chelsie and Sophie (above) are both short-term placement students, starting their final year of study at LJMU in September 2021.

During their time with us at the centre, Wood Pigeons receive an extra boost of vitamin D in their diets (usually in the form of tasty broccoli being chopped up and added to their seed) in order to support their bones for flight! Wood Pigeons are resident birds to the UK and can be seen all-year-round, easily identified by their pink/grey breasts.

Look out for our next post, coming Saturday!

Chelsie Hirons-Major

Student Placement

To support the ongoing work of the wildlife hospital, during this extremely difficult time, please donate to the Wildlife JustGiving site.

Meet the buzzards!

 This week at the centre has been the most different that I've experienced so far. As well as the usual cleaning of fox cages and waterfowl pools - more on this in subsequent posts - I got to help out in the isolation unit of the hospital. Home to all of the animals that are still being monitored for sickness and disease, the pens in isolation are designed to house everything things as small as a single gull chick, to creatures as large as fully grown grey seals (*Cuteness warning - picture of a grey seal pup at the very bottom)! 

During my time in the isolation unit I got hissed at by a very angry gosling, pecked at by a particularly demanding herring gull, but (coolest of all) got to see a juvenile buzzard hand-fed and even helped affix a tail-guard to him. Talk about up close and personal...

Later that day, whilst myself and another student were preparing the evening feeds, we were asked to go and help crop-tube feed the two buzzards that had been released into the aviaries the day before. After being surrendered to us by a captive breeder, these guys were stressed out to the max and had stopped eating, which is where we come in! After immobilising the animal (those talons are sharp), a long metal feeding tube is fed down the birds gullet, through which a super tasty 'chick soup' is delivered via syringe. Nice. Wouldn't be my chosen method of delivery but it's definitely effective! 

These guys will be monitored over the next few days in order to determine whether they're suitable for release. Sadly, animals that come out of captive breeding are less likely to survive in the wild - an affinity for humans gets them into all kinds of sticky situations. It's not all doom and gloom though, because these guys really do not like people! They've already nipped a few of the staff, so their case for release is actually looking pretty good...

More from me next week,

Chelsie

Student Placement

To support the ongoing work of the wildlife hospital, during this extremely difficult time, please donate to the Wildlife JustGiving site.

*Seal pup pic - as aforementioned

A little about me...

My name's Chelsie and I'm a mature student at LJMU (Representing the Midlands in the North, it's tough). For a long time in my early teens I was very lost... I spent a long time hopping from industry to industry and never really found my feet. As much as I enjoyed working with the public in Hospitality, it just never felt 'right'.

Fast forward a few years and I have one year of my Animal Behaviour degree left. If you'd told me I'd be here, even as little as 3 years ago, I'd have laughed in your face. But here I am, finally doing something that matters to me - learning how to help those that can't help themselves.

My time at the RSPCA will be brief - hell, I only have a month left even though it feels like I basically just started... but over the coming weeks I hope to communicate just how hard these guys on the ground here work and how much they need and value your continued support! 

I promise to deliver some success stories and fluffy photographs along the way, but alongside that I want to write about the reality of volunteering at a place like Stapeley Grange and the emotional highs and lows the staff at the RSPCA are subjected to every single day. So stick around and you might just feel compelled to start volunteering yourself...

Looking forward to sharing my journey with you all,

Chelsie 

Student Placement

To support the ongoing work of the wildlife hospital, during this extremely difficult time, please donate to the Wildlife JustGiving site.

PS. As promised, here's a 'fluffy' photograph of my absolute faves at the centre, some otters! My university lecturers will confirm that I'm a bit of a mustelid fanatic - how could you not be, look at these guys! They're some of the longer-term residents at Stapeley as we have to keep them in for several months before releasing them back out into the wild. That does mean, however, that we really get to see their individual personalities shine through. The guy in the 2nd photograph is a very cheeky little chappie! Hopefully by the next post I will have sussed out how to embed video, and that'll be a real treat for you all :D

 

'Rhos-on-Seal'

With only 3 months left of my year long placement at Stapeley Grange, I feel that time has flown by, and as they say 'time flies when you’re having fun' (and working hard!). The day that will be most memorable to me was last Thursday, when I was cleaning and feeding the many ducklings we have in care at the moment and Wildlife Assistant Rob finds me and asks whether I would join him in releasing a seal. 

Unsurprisingly I jumped at the chance and we were soon on our way after getting the seal out of its pool and into a large vari kennel and into the back of our van.  The grey seal came to us in January as an orphan.  Initially he was tube fed fish soup and then hand fed fish until he was then eating on his own.  After some months he was transferred down to RSPCA East Winch (Norfolk) where they have larger, deeper pools.  He weighed around 60kg on release and with male grey seals weighing up to 300kg in the wild, he still has a bit of growing to do! 

We were going to be releasing the seal, named Colin, at Rhos-on-sea. Once we had found a suitable site for release, we carried the seal down to the water.  It was essential we released the seal at high tide, so that as the tide drew out, it would encourage the seal out into the deeper water.  The time finally came, after 5 months in care, to open the cage and release Colin back to the wild.

 

As soon as the door was opened, Colin hurried out and into the water without hesitation - which was amazing to watch.  He stuck around for a couple of minutes before making his way along the shore and then out of the bay. We expect he will migrate and integrate into a colony to breed. 

 

The whole experience was one I will never forget, particularly as I have seen first hand the progress he had made over the past few months.  I now fully appreciate the hard work that goes into rehabilitating such a large animal; I was so grateful to the team for allowing me to help!

Catherine Smith

Student Placement

'If you would like to help RSPCA Stapeley Grange with a donation of just £3, simply text RSPCA2 to 70007' Texts cost £3 + standard network rate. 

A Visit To A Release Aviary

On Friday 19^th May I went with Wildlife Assistant Rob to a release aviary close to Stapeley Grange. We took six Mistle Thrushes that had been in our care for a couple of weeks, along with food and water and released them into the aviary. The aviary is situated in a woodland and made out of wire mesh panels.  This is the final stage for the birds; they are subjected to all weather conditions and sounds but have the security of the aviary which protects from potential predators. 

Everyday a wildlife assistant travels to the aviary to give the birds fresh food and water… Rob said he might even trust me to do it! 

After 10-14 days a hatch is opened on the side of the cage and the birds are allowed to leave the aviary, as and when they please.  All of our birds released from these aviaries are ringed with a BTO ring in case they are seen in the wild.  They may even find themselves in our care again or even picked up at another wildlife hospital. 

The aviary is used for a number of species over the summer including thrushes, starlings, house sparrows and blackbirds.  Soft release protocols are always our preferred release options but our mobile aviaries also free up space in our main aviaries which allows us to get our birds out quicker and prevents a backlog of animals in the wildlife hospital.  The birds soon began to bathe in their water bath and fill their beaks with the food provided; bird seed, prosecto and meal worms provided.

Catherine Smith

Student Placement

'If you would like to help RSPCA Stapeley Grange with a donation of just £3, simply text RSPCA2 to 70007' Texts cost £3 + standard network rate.