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Episode 5 - Learning about RSPCA Mallydams Wood with staff and volunteers
27 Plays9 months ago
Welcome to Walk on the Wild Side, an RSPCA podcast. We’ll meet people from this 200-year-old animal welfare charity, and learn about what they do. We’ll discover more about the amazing wildlife all around us, and how we can help it thrive, and be inspired to get outdoors and into nature.
In the final episode of the series, Holly spends the afternoon at RSPCA Mallydams Wood and meets its staff and volunteers. She gets to look inside the X-ray room and high-intensity care unit with vet surgeon Jo and student Emma, speaks to volunteer Debra in the bird holding area, and asks supervisor Jess about trainee animal rescue officer Poppy’s unusual headgear. During the summer the patients at Mallydams Wood are usually birds, but for most of the year the wildlife centre resounds with the barking of seals – listen to a clip from one of our archive films about how seals came into our care in the 1960s.
Host: Holly Cushen
Writers: Holly Cushen and Morwenna Kearns
Producer: Morwenna Kearns
Audio producer: Chris Attaway
Wildlife advisor: Rebecca Machin
Executive producer: Sarah Millerick
Recorded on location at RSPCA Mallydams Wood near Hastings
Wildlife advice: rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/wildlife
Work for the RSPCA: jobs.rspca.org.uk/jobs/home
Volunteer for animals: rspca.org.uk/getinvolved/volunteer
More information on how to get involved: rspca.org.uk/getinvolved/donate/audio
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Transcript
Introduction to RSPCA's Wildlife Focus
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Walk on the Wild Side, an RSPCA podcast. I'm Holly Cushion, an outreach officer at the ah RSPCA. Over this series, we'll meet some other people from this 200-year-old animal welfare charity and learn more about what they do. We'll discover more about the amazing wildlife all around us, how we can help it thrive and be inspired to get outdoors and into nature.
Meet the Experts: Jo and Emma at Mallydams Woods
00:00:32
Speaker
On this episode, we're meeting the staff and volunteers at ah RSPCA Mallydams Woods to learn all about how they treat and care for wildlife.
00:00:51
Speaker
So we're here at Mallydams and we're outside the general care room. I'm joined here with two guests. Would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, so my name is Jo Meyer. I'm one of the veterinary surgeons at Mallydams. And I'm Emma Mills. I'm a vet student that's here on a clinical placement.
00:01:06
Speaker
and what have you been doing today?
A Day in the Life: Wildlife Treatment Challenges
00:01:09
Speaker
Well we've had a busy day today, we're at our busiest time of year when there's obviously all sorts of animals out and about in the summer. So today we've been dealing with our smaller birds this morning, we've done a number of x-rays of birds with various issues and we've done one stitch up as well which was on a baby blackbird with quite a nasty wound. We've also had quite a large number of new admissions this morning so a number of smaller birds, we've also had a few herring gulls in this morning um A couple of mice as well, so all sorts of things happening today. Lots of different animals. Is there an animal that you most commonly sort of see here at Mallydams?
00:01:45
Speaker
Well, at this time of year, I think the herring girls are our most common. So they're all housed outside in an area that's dedicated to them. So at this time of year, there's a lot of herring girls which are nesting on roofs and they quite frequently get into trouble coming off roofs, ending up sort of injured or separated from their parents. So we've got a large number of juveniles at the moment. So they're our most common admission right
Stress Reduction in Wildlife Care
00:02:08
Speaker
now. And um I think probably the majority of the patients in the hospital are the herring girls.
00:02:12
Speaker
So should we head into the general care room? Can we have a look? Yeah, absolutely. So we can kind have a look at what we've been doing today. um We won't be handling any of the patients because they don't need to be at the moment. We'll just have a look from a distance and talk about them. Do you try and keep as hands off sort of as possible? Absolutely. So with wildlife, it's really important that we're always aware that any interaction we have that is stressful for the animal. So we always try to have as hands off an approach as we can and only actually handle the animal. It's absolutely necessary for feeding or medication or assessment purposes.
00:02:41
Speaker
Emma, of you have you had any hands-on experience yet? Yeah, so I actually hadn't worked with any wildlife before I got to Mallydams and I've only been here for the week but I've got to do a lot so far and it's been really interesting and helpful. Anything in particular that you've really found amazing? Oh yeah, I've got to help with anesthesia for a lot of the different wild birds which is not something that you see in practice usually at all because obviously all wild animals are bring about to rehab centers so it's been really cool to get to do something like that which you wouldn't get to do otherwise.
00:03:10
Speaker
I think you really enjoyed um looking at the owl as well didn't you? have day that was a special The have been really cool there was a tawny owl that I got to see with Joe and then a little owl with the other vet surgeon Amy and they're gorgeous it's been really cool to get to see them.
Case Study: Treating a Blackbird
00:03:23
Speaker
Let's head in.
00:03:26
Speaker
a In here we've got animals of various species primarily birds at the moment so this tends to be our sort of high intensity care unit so the animals which are more in need of a bit more TLC and looking after so they've got quite a lot of young animals and also ones um which are injured and on medication at the moment. So the ones which we have been dealing with today So over here we've got a few juvenile blackbirds. One of these has quite a nasty wound after being caught by a cat. It was on the front of the leg which is quite a difficult place to heal because the leg obviously moves quite a lot so there's a lot of movement in that area. So for that wound to be able to heal properly it needed to be stitched. So just before lunch we were doing that um so the bird was anesthetized and we've got some stitches in the wound and hopefully
00:04:13
Speaker
it should heal up well now and that bird has got a good prognosis. How long might that take it to heal something like that? and Well birds are amazing at healing they've got a very fast metabolism compared to mammals um so generally they will heal really quickly and with things more serious injuries like like broken bones for example they can actually heal at about twice the speed of mammals so they generally heal very well um so we'd expect these sorts of wounds to be pretty much healed in sort of 10 to 14 days and then that bird will be moving outside to an aviary and and hopefully they then on to release.
Understanding and Treating Pigeons
00:04:45
Speaker
I am so wildly distracted by this lovely noise behind me. and who Who are these two very lovely fluffy things? So those are two of our baby pigeons which are absolutely adorable. You know you never ever see baby pigeons do you really? There are lots of people say that yeah they stay in the nest for quite a long time but yeah they're lovely little animals. I think pigeons are highly underappreciated
00:05:09
Speaker
you can see next door we've got another slightly older juvenile pigeon which is absolutely beautiful with its colouring. So this one's got, and was also caught by a cat actually, has got quite a nasty wound by its shoulder and that's another one that we've been looking at today. So Emma helped me anesthetise it and we've done some x-rays to sort of check for more serious problems around that wing. It's got no fractures, just a little bit of swelling so again hopefully that one will but will do well. and That's good news at least and you know with sort of things like and when an animal has been maybe attacked by a cat or injured by another animal. Is it quite likely then that that animal is brought to you by a member of the public or is that the RSPCA sort of going out and rescuing that animal? um So the vast majority of these um are animals which have been brought in by members of the public so obviously if it is um an animal that's been brought by a cat quite often the owner of that animal will then bring ah bring the patient into us so that is quite common. We also get a lot of patients transferred from vet practices
00:06:06
Speaker
So if people take wildlife to vet practices they'll then pass them on to us and obviously the inspectors will will bring animals animals as in as well.
00:06:18
Speaker
So we've got here a a box of what looks like wood shavings and there's some wiggly things in it, Jo, what are they? Yeah, so those ones are not patient. So those are wax worms. So in the box next to it with the sheet over the top, and we've got a baby house marten and they're the the food which is being fed to the house marten. So those are insectivore species. So obviously we want to feed them a diet which is appropriate for them and with insectivores, insect-based diet, so generally the best option.
Creating Comfortable Environments for Birds
00:06:48
Speaker
It's just sitting in its artificial nest there. um So these came in as extremely young birds and our expert wildlife team is on a fabulous job rearing them. They're not the easiest patients. This one's done exceptionally well. So a couple of these enclosures in here, they look quite different. We've got some down at the bottom there with lots of foliage and there's some with blankets and things like that. Why is it different?
00:07:13
Speaker
So we need to adapt the housing to the species that we're looking after. So the ones which have got sort of branches and fresh leaves in, they're generally the the smaller birds called the passerine birds, so they're garden birds. So on this side, we've got some blackbirds and there's some finches and some sparrows. And those are species which like to feel very feel safe. So by providing the foliage, they can hide behind amongst it and they'll feel more secure and a bit less stressed while they're in care.
00:07:39
Speaker
For our larger birds in particular, well, with all birds, they need to have something appropriate to sit on. So they'll they want to perch on something which is comfortable for them. And again, that depends on the species. So with the little birds, they've got sort of smaller sticks, which obviously suit their feet. We've got some wood pigeons in here, which are the larger pigeons. And they've got larger perches, which are more comfortable for them. The feral pigeons or the town pigeons, which are the ones of different colors, they like to perch on flat surfaces. So they're the ones with kind of um flat platforms rather than round purchase.
00:08:23
Speaker
So we're over at the x-ray room now, and you did mention earlier Emma that you were x-raying a bird earlier this morning. Can you tell me how you go about doing that? Yeah, so whenever we have a bird that we want to get kind of a more inside look on, we'll get him and bring him to the x-ray room, done a few times this week at Mallydans, and so we have to anesthetize them. Obviously it can be quite stressful since they're wild animals to x-ray them while they're awake and alert and so we anesthetize them using a gas anesthesia here. We'll get them and we'll put their face in a face mask so that they can breathe in the anesthesia and once they're suitably asleep then we will position them on
00:09:06
Speaker
the x-ray plate that they have here at Mallydams. Usually we want to get at least two views so we'll have them lying on their back with their wings spread out and then pull their legs forward so that you can get a clear picture of all of their bones without anything really overlapping. And then we'll go ahead and get one on their side as well with their wings up kind of how they would look like if they're flying so that you can see from a different view just in case there might be anything that you would miss from just them flat on their back so that we can try and get the best diagnostic picture.
00:09:37
Speaker
How hard is it to get a face mask on a bird? It depends on the bird. Obviously when we're dealing with um larger birds or more active lively birds sometimes it can be more difficult. but um You know, we have ways of managing them to minimise the stress as much as possible. So sometimes we wrap them in a towel so that they can't flap too much or hurt themselves. And obviously with birds, there's a huge range of different beak shapes. So we have quite a range of masks. So we have special ones for birds with longer beaks and small ones for sort of standard smaller birds. um So yeah, you have to kind of adapt to the patient that you're dealing with. So can you talk us through what your findings were from that x-ray this morning?
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So this is um a young farewell pigeon that we've just seen in incubator. It's the white and grey one. and So it's got some puncture wounds around the left shoulder and its left wing is a little bit dropped. So we were taking x-rays to check for fractures and more serious causes of the wing been in that dropped position. Fortunately for the birds we haven't seen any fractures and there's very actually only a little bit of swelling around the shoulder joints associated with that wound. The movement of all the joints is good, the bones look in very good condition um so it generally looks like a healthy bird just with a soft tissue wound so we think this one should recover well.
Personal Stories: Ambitions and Favorites
00:10:49
Speaker
So Emma, earlier you said you are a student so what type of course are you doing and what are you hoping to go on to achieve? So I'm currently studying to be a vet surgeon which is why I am here getting to work with Jo. So hopefully I will get to eventually you work with wildlife or marine mammals. I think that would be really cool. Marine mammals, are they your favourite animal or do you have a different one?
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that I think marine mammals are probably my favorite group of animals. It's just really neat how they're so similar to us, but also vastly different. Angel, what's yours? Oh, I always really struggle with this question because there's so many animals that I really adore. I have a real soft spot for hedgehogs. I think they're absolutely charming and really lovely little patients. And I also particularly love working with birds of prey as well, so they're incredibly special animals and so highly adapted to what they do there. They're incredible.
00:11:43
Speaker
Thank you so much Jo and Emma for talking to us today. It's been really fantastic to get to know more about your roles. And Emma, best of luck with your studies. I'm sure you'll be absolutely fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.
00:12:04
Speaker
So we're just walking down the corridor here and we're going to head into what's called the bird holding area to speak to one of the volunteers here at Mally Dam's named Deborah.
00:12:18
Speaker
Deborah, how long have you been a volunteer at the ah RSPCA for? About four months I think. So you're fairly new to this and do do you enjoy it? I love it, yes I love it.
00:12:29
Speaker
What's your favourite part about volunteering? Well being with the animals obviously um and the staff, they're all lovely. It's a nice friendly atmosphere. So what kind of things day to day do you do as a volunteer? Well mainly a lot of cleaning out of cages, pens and anything else it needs doing.
00:12:51
Speaker
You're a jack of all trades. Yeah, pretty much. So we're in the bird room. Is that maybe predominantly what you do or what types of wildlife do you do? It has been lately because it's that time of the year when there's a lot of birds coming in that have been, you know, little fledglings and injuries. And yes, so it's pretty full in here, but there have been a few hedgehogs in here. Oh, I love hedgehogs. And there's a couple of owls in here at the moment. Wow.
00:13:19
Speaker
And Deborah, even though you're fairly new to the RSPCA as a volunteer, do you have sort of any words of advice for anybody who maybe wants to learn more about wildlife in England or maybe wants to to volunteer? Yeah, go for it. Just go for it because I did it by chance. I bought an injured bird here myself and I'd never been here before and everyone was just so lovely and I thought the whole atmosphere of the place was so peaceful. I thought, I think I'd like to do that. So that's how I... Go on here. I don't blame you. Walking around Mallydams today has just been so peaceful and so it's so lovely. It's such ah such a nice centre. And most importantly, this is the best question, what is your favourite animal? Oh, I don't know if I've got a... No pressure. I don't know if I've got a... I do love the hedgehogs. I do love the hedgehogs but I love... What is it about hedgehogs that you like?
00:14:16
Speaker
they're just they cute little faces little faces and I think they have such a hard time lately as well but I mean ah I love everything. I suppose everyone at the ah RSPCA does it for for their love of animals and how much they want to protect animals so saying all animals is a very valid answer. Well it is, it's true. I couldn't say there's anything I don't like you know oh I don't want to be in there or I don't want to do that I just don't mind where I go Thanks Deborah, it's really nice talking to you and I'd love you to meet you as well.
Volunteer Insights: Deborah's Experience
00:14:56
Speaker
So just at the end of the corridor here there is an inspector wearing an unusual outfit so I'm going to go over and see what's going on.
00:15:14
Speaker
Hi, I'm Holly and I've just spotted you at the end of the corridor looking a bit like a beekeeper. Can you tell me what you're doing? Hi, I'm Poppy. I'm one of the new ARO trainers. um I'm just having my face bit training for yeah a new face mask to be wearing out in the field. So you're also here with Jess, the supervisor. and Jess, why do the AROs need face masks? When you work with birds, there's always a slight risk um that you could capture disease from a from a bird respiratory disease so we fit everybody with um
00:15:48
Speaker
a FFP3 face mask before they start working with birds. So that's what we're doing today. So what's with the big over the head beehive vibe? So it's a a qualitative test. So you put you inside a sort of a shield and we um spray an aerosol that tastes bitter inside the shield um whilst you're wearing your mask. And if you can detect the bitter aerosol whilst you've got your mask on, it indicates that that mask isn't a good fit for you.
00:16:16
Speaker
um and it hasn't got a great seal, which means that if you were working with lots of birds, um pigeons are a prime example of that. If you were in a room with lots and lots of pigeons, that mask wouldn't be effective for you and we would put you at risk of of respiratory disease. So that's why we do it, to make sure that the mask fits the person. Cheers guys!
Seal Rescue Mission in Norfolk
00:16:46
Speaker
There are lots of birds here at the moment. Normally we'd see lots of seals here at Mally Damas, but it's the wrong time of the year. So we're going to take a short break and then when we come back, we'll get an insight into how the ah RSPCA managed seal rescues back in 1961.
00:17:03
Speaker
Here at the RSPCA, we believe everyone can play a vital role in helping animals. From sponsored runs to making a donation. But no matter how much time you can spare, we've got ways you can get involved. Join us. Everyone for every kind. Help animals your way and click more info now.
00:17:30
Speaker
The RSPCA has been around since 1824 and it's amazing to look back and see how much we've achieved over the past two centuries. We've got a huge archive of films, sound recordings, photographs, newspaper clippings and magazines. So let's dig in now.
00:17:58
Speaker
These baby seals are all They're typical of many who become stranded on the beaches in Norfolk in the area of the wash every summer during the breeding season. But how do baby common seals, mostly only a few days old, come to be here in the first place? Well, several colonies of common seals inhabit the wash, living and breeding on sand banks, which are a feature of this area. Pups are born at low tide when the sand is uncovered.
00:18:26
Speaker
They're soon active, and being able to swim well, cope successfully with the rising tide.
00:18:35
Speaker
Usually, only the very young drift away from the banks. Exhausted by swimming, a baby seal will fall asleep floating on the water. Strong currents and in stormy weather, rough seas may take him in close to the mainland shore. On awakening, he instinctively makes for the nearest sandy stretch, only to find it isn't his own sandbank after all.
00:18:56
Speaker
Adult seals rarely come searching for lost babies, and that's the beginning of an annual problem for RSPCA Chief Inspector Morrison, whose concern then is to rescue these orphans, feed and care for them, and return them to the sea close to a sandbank.
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:19:24
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the RSPCA Walk on the Wild Side podcast. It was presented by me, Holly Cushion, written by myself and Moenna Kearns, and produced by Chris Attaway and Moenna Kearns. Our wildlife expert was Rebecca Machen. The executive producer was Sarah Millerick.
00:19:43
Speaker
Special thanks to RSPCA Newbrook Farm and RSPCA Mallydams Wood, all of our guests and everyone else who helped put this podcast together. To learn more about getting involved with the RSPCA, click on the link in the show notes or search ah RSPCA Wildlife Podcast or visit rspca.org.uk.