This blog reflects my personal experiences and opinions and does not represent or reflect those of DierenAmbulance Nederrijn.
On-site
The onset of Spring means there are more animals to rescue, so the afternoon shift is now manned with 2 teams to cope with the extra load and travel.
Resistance is proportional to velocity squared.
I’d postulate “Chaos is proportional to the number of people in a room squared”.
People count (a few minutes after I arrived) in the common room:
3. (Driver, co-driver and paddy from previous shift)
4. (2 drivers and 2 co-drivers from the current shift)
2. (Previous and present centralist)
2. (Office staff)
11 of us! Start squaring! 😉
It was mayhem! But what was going through my mind was: Get gloves get gloves get gloves get gloves get gloves get gloves get gloves…
Get Gloved!
Last week I left protective gloves at the location of the first cat rescue. The address was in the system, but there were several buildings on the site and we needed extra instructions to find the exact location of the cat. I left these instructions with the centralist so she could make a note the gloves could be picked up if another rescue was nearby. Unfortunately I got a call the next day; the instructions had been misplaced, so please would I arrange to pick them up?
No problem – but I didn’t want to forget!
The driver phoned the nursing home from the ambulance where it was quieter; 20 minutes later we were there and reunited with my gloves – and also a (superfluous) towel I’d brought with me to help catch the cat. One of the workers there asked how the cat was doing. All we could say was what the vet told us and that the cat had been taken to the shelter. I handed out a load of magazines for the residents of the nursing home and we headed back to the van.
Even internal trips like this need administration, so I marked we’d got the gloves back. But a personal touch is always better; I sent a photo to the co-ordinator!
Magazine Round
Driving all this way to collect some gloves seems nuts to me when there are sometimes complaints about driving shorter distances to rescue a mouse (*growl*), but more was in store. There were still no rescues so we were to hand-deliver magazines with the ambulance.
The first few residences were quite a walk away from the roadside where we parked up but I appreciated the good side of this; my step count was going up nicely!
Beech Marten
Our first rescue – and the first time I’ve rescued this animal; a Beech Marten (or Stone Marten – steenmarten).
This little creature fell through a hole in the roof of a large shed about 4 or 5m high. He could only raise his head a little, other than that he couldn’t move. The finders put him in a small box and placed it in the sunshine to keep him warm. The notes in the admin advised us to use a hot water bottle in our rescue box, and that an external driver would bring him to a shelter some 60 km away that specialises in injured native wildlife (not the shelter we use for birds and hedgehogs).
This little fellow was about 20 cm long. I didn’t know at the time whether he was a baby, a juvenile or an adult, so I guessed juvenile. It turned out later this was correct; adult Beech Martens can grow to the size of a small cat!
High Emotions
Seeing this marten really touched my heart. His limited movement, his positioning on the towel in the rescue box, and the look of agony on his face hit me hard.
Aside on the admin
The administration side of things was surprisingly simple, though not without it’s complications! I pre-filled out a Finder’s Form on the way to the finder’s location, but then I doubted my wisdom because the marten isn’t a pet. When I checked the notes I was surprised I missed something – it helpfully gave the name of the correct form I needed – a “Wild Animal Form”. All good, except I couldn’t find it in the massive folder! A phone call to the co-ordinator sorted us out – it’s the same form we use for birds and hedgehogs that go to the ‘regular’ shelter.
This form has the name and address of the finder and travels with the animal so that once it’s better it can be re-released into the wild in the same or similar location. The finder needs to sign the form giving their permission that this is OK. I explained this to the finders and they were happy to sign, but I wondered – martens are often considered a nuisance because they crawl under cars and bite through cables (which is why we park our ambulances on metal grids to discourage martens who don’t like walking on them). Would the finders object to having the marten returned to their residence?
Back at the Base
The town where we were delivered magazines earlier was on the other side of the base, so we decided to stop off first at the base first for a cuppa. Not much was going on. The second team was there (they’d rescued a hedgehog) so we busied ourselves restocking the ambulance and with a few menial tasks around the site.
In my case this meant playing the co-ordinators “next victim” by measuring up a couple of incubators. They were stored in a room where we keep animals temporarily before external drivers arrive on-site to bring them to various shelters. I haven’t seen this room in the year (nearly) I’ve worked here. I suppose that’s the point – to keep animals overnight (when necessary) in a quiet, peaceful area with no foot traffic.
Bat
I wasn’t directly involved in this last rescue, but the call came through and I overheard it. Sadly (for me) it didn’t make it onto my To-Do list.
A bat was found crawling on the floor under a bush which is not a good sign for a nocturnal animal of flight. The decision tree (which essentially guides us through various protocols for different reported animals in a variety of conditions, situations and locations) indicated bats are brought directly to a bat expert. These individuals assess (and sometimes treat) the bat’s condition and release them back into nature or bring them to an animal shelter / vet.
The 2 bat experts we have links with appreciate a phone call in advance; often it makes more sense that the expert picks up the bat directly themselves. This was the case today; it was sad for me because I had nothing to do, but it was better for the bat. We passed on the information we had – no specific address, but location of the bush that was a certain number of trees along a cycle path. And a video to use as a reality-augmented map!
The timing of this bat story was funny as I’d talked about my last bat rescue with my Dutch teacher in the morning!
