Pauline’s page Dear Friends,


We always talk about the highs and lows when working with animals but after the wonderful rescue of the swans on Boxing Day, we really hit rock bottom when we were involved with the shooting of swans down on the moors. There is an article on this in the newsletter but the sheer number of dead swans, which eventually reached 43 animals, not only horrified us but also really touched the hearts of so many people. Nobody was ever prosecuted but hopefully the huge media interest will stop the people involved from ever doing such a cruel thing again.


Whilst it was the busiest winter that we have ever had, our staff were able to do a “change over” with staff at the Gweek Seal sanctuary. This gave us a very good insight to the care of seals and a relationship where we could seek advice in the future. I think our staff got a lot out of their time working at Gweek and I hope that the Gweek staff also benefited from their days working here at Secret World.


There was also time for the animal care staff and volunteers to have a day out with one of our Patrons, Chris Sperring MBE, who showed them all how to survey areas to see if they are


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suitable habitats for owls. Everyone learnt so much in that one day and it was good to see the eventual release sites that some of our owlets go to.


Each animal carer also took on enrichment projects for our resident animals and made improvements to our grassed enclosures for casualties. The projects led to changes ranging from a new artificial holt for the otters to landscaping the tortoise pens and even hammocks for the ferrets!


Several talks have been given through the autumn and winter and a large number of collections have taken place in many garden centres and National Trust properties. Our team, including many of our dedicated volunteers who go out to do collections sometimes as often as twice a week, work very hard to promote our charity and collect donations. It seems that Twinkle, our tawny owl, is always a favourite when going out and is always very vocal.


We continue to care for all animals, no matter what species they are, and I have purposely put a photo of rabbits being released to show the delight in returning animals to the wild - from the smallest to the largest of our wildlife.


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