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We are looking for a competent and committed professional
Animal Care Assistant to join us. This is a fully paid position, shortlisted candidates will be expected to volunteer for a few days as part of the interview process. • Competitive salary for the right candidate. • 3-4 days per week (flexible hours which will include some weekends/bank holidays). • Clean driving licence preferred. Overall Responsibilities • Undertake basic care needs of wildlife in care - cleaning out, feeding, treating and monitoring. • Administering drugs and ensuring drugs regimes are followed. • Ensuring adherence to workplace practice including health and safety. • Admission of new animals and birds and dealing with members of the public. • Assist with maintenance of animal shelters and pens. • Grounds maintenance, weeding, hedge trimming etc. • Occasional driving to veterinary surgeries or to collect feed. • Work flexibly in relation to increased demands with influx of animals or volunteer availability. Essential Knowledge, Skills, and Characteristics Required • Must be able to work on own initiative. • Desire and ability to learn; be prepared to undertake any training required to fulfil the position. • Demonstrate empathy and respect for the animals and birds in care. • Demonstrate good inter-personal skills. • Work well as part of a team and in the absence of Principal Trustee. • Flexibility around working hours – emergencies cannot be scheduled. • Literate and numerate, able to manage drug calculations and complete forms legibly. • A strong stomach. Wildlives deals with serious and sometimes infected wounds and many other injuries and ailments, as well as performing post mortems on site. • Resilience – while Wildlives has an unprecedented success rate, not everything has a happy ending. The successful candidate would be able to learn from those that do not and move on. This job description is not exhaustive and candidate will be required to undertake duties commensurate with this role. PLEASE APPLY IN WRITING TO WILDLIVES, CATKINS, FRATING ROAD, THORRINGTON, CO7 8HT AS THE EMAIL IS STAFFED BY VOLUNTEERS AND MAY NOT BE PROCESSED. Any communications received other than by post will be disregarded. |
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The Origin of the Mersea Island Red Squirrels Approximately 15 years ago Wildlives was approached by Lady Sylvia Morrow, who had been keeping two pet female red squirrels. She wanted them to go to a good home, so offered them to Wildlives. As Wildlives is a rescue centre with the aim of releasing animals back into the wild, rather than a captive sanctuary, Rosie came up with the idea of starting a breeding program with the two females. The long term aim would be to release red squirrels back into the wild. Rosie contacted David Stapleford, of the Red Squirrel Conservation Trust and the National Red Squirrel Captive Breeding Program at Pensthorpe in Fakenham (East Anglia branch). There were long discussions to make the plan a reality, and an extremely large and expensive purpose-built enclosure was constructed, with ample room for exercise and natural behaviour, located in a very quiet and isolated part of the centre to minimise disturbance and human contact. Finally when all was ready, Lady Morrow’s two females arrived, and, once they had settled in, a male was carefully introduced from Pensthorpe in Fakenham. The male immediately mated with both females, to David’s amazement and joy – in 40 years of being a red squirrel champion he had never before seen them mating. Once the breeding program began to show success, Rosie became concerned about the planned release of the offspring; the favoured release site was Anglesey island, which has a thriving population of grey squirrels (which were being culled), and the survival rates of red squirrel there was not as high as had been hoped. Rosie then thought of Mersea Island, with its lack of a resident grey squirrel population, and thought it would be an ideal place to start a new red squirrel colony. After a couple of years of multiple phone calls and discussions involving David Stapleford, the head of the Red Squirrel Breeding Program at Pensthorpe, and Dougal Urquhart, the ranger at Cudmore Grove Country Park in East Mersea, all were agreed that Mersea island would be, as Rosie had thought, ideal for the new colony. Red squirrel boxes were set up in East Mersea and Rosie’s red squirrels were released there where they would be monitored under the auspices of David Stapleford. Since that time the red squirrels have flourished and thrived, and become an integral part of the island wildlife and culture. |
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| Hedgehog Warning
During
the lockdown period while so many people are gardening, here at Wildlives
Rescue & rehabilitation we have noticed a massive increase in the number
of hedgehogs sustaining injuries from strimmers and other gardening
equipment. The majority of
these injuries are so catastrophic as top require euthanasia. |
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Here is a poster that can be shared and printed in garden
equipment suppliers and websites. Please share Save Our Hedgehogs |
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