Pauline’s page Dear Friends,


Autumn has been fantastic with all the rich colours of the trees making it one of the most beautiful seasons of the year. It is the time when many of our orphans are going to their release sites and although, in a way, we are sorry to see them go, this is what we are all really working towards.


We have a had a very difficult year with our badger cubs especially during the very dry spell in the summer, when even the adults were out during the day desperately looking for food. This added pressure on the orphans meant that we were dealing with cubs that were severely compromised before they even arrived here. Despite the difficulty in finding enough release sites, all our cubs were found new homes. I hope you will enjoy hearing about the badger cubs in Portugal later in this newsletter!


You will find a Badger Trust leaflet in with your newsletter to make you aware of the consultation that is taking place. If you don’t want to see badgers killed in 2011 please find out more on page 4 - you only have until December 7th to act.


With nearly 40 fox cubs, our release manager Andy, was kept very busy finding suitable release sites and remember, it all starts again next year. So if you think you have land that may be suitable as a release site for any species then please let us know.


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Some of you may remember our otter cubs, Afon, Puddle, Tiny Toni and Ozzy, all of whom have now returned to the wild. Our recent otter cubs, Geraint and Snuffles have moved out to an outside enclosure but they aren’t old enough to go into the pen with the large pond so it will give us a few months to sort the pen out.


With the fawns also moved to their new area, we were able to make the most of our Work day in November, getting all the pens dug over and reseeded. With over 30 volunteers helping a great deal of painting was also carried out so we have had a good start with our maintenance ready for next year’s orphan season. The otter pen has been completely revamped and we are hoping to add a filter to the pond so that we do not have to fill it quite so often.


We have a really good team of volunteers and it’s great to see everybody working together to help all the animals that we care for. With the extra enclosures and aviaries that we have been able to build this year, we need more people to deal with the extra facilities. Sara has settled in well and it is hard to believe that she has only been here for a few months.


The black Labrador failed to win Simon’s heart but has Sara wrapped around her little finger, and often goes to her ‘second’ home at the end of the day. I can’t think why the wall paper stripping happens when she is here


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