Wildlife rescue / animal welfare

[Riley]

hey all,

Im doing duke of ed with my school, and theres three sections to the award; skill, physical rec and volunteering for the community. For the volunteering community part i was thinking of volunteering for animal care (especially reptiles), something like RSPCA or WIRES. I checked their website and RSPCA and Animal Welfare League was full and for Wires you have to been atleast 18.

Just wondering if anyone here had any ideas of what I could do along the lines of wildlife-(reptiles especially) rescue or animal care? (around the north sydney region)

thanks!
Riley

 

[garycahill]

You will basically need to have completed the required training & have the correct licencing to be able to work with the reptiles. At leat thats how it works here in Vic. I am a volunteer rescuer with badgar, although there are a few different associations around.

 

[Riley]

oh alright.. what about animals in general?

 

[garycahill]

With rescue/rehabilitation, you will need to have completed the relavant training & licencing, especially for any fieldwork. You may be able to get a position within a shelter, but it would exclude working with any reptiles as you will need a licence for you to be able to work with reptiles, ie, not the normal wildlife permit that enables you to keep reptiles.
Sorry if this isn't the answer you were hoping for.

 

[Riley]

k thanks garycahill. does anyone from nsw know if this is the same here as Victoria??

cheers

 

[xycom]

I reckon you could try a local wildlife shelter and see if you can help them with general duties around the place. With a bit of luck they might have a reptile or two in care. Most shelters I deal with are pretty informal and would be glad to have an extra hand to help out. I'm a carer for Donna up at the Greendale Wildlife shelter and she often has young people helping out. My 6 year old daughter come up some times and gets put to work. You don't need to be 18 to clean out cages or collect leaves and branches or make up feeds.

Per

 

[Riley]

awesome thanks xycom! ill check it out

 

[pythonmum]

Hi Riley. If you want to help out, you may be able to assist one of the licensed carers for WIRES. There are a few around northern Sydney. Contact WIRES and say that you know you are too young to be a carer yourself, but that you would like to help out. A free cage cleaner/food prep helper would probably be nice for some of the folks who have lots of animals. You could also try asking at the local vet practice (Brad Garlick at Asquith Vet is close to you) to see if they have any ideas. Lots of the wildlife rescue will be possums, fruit bats and birds, but the odd reptile comes through. My father volunteers with the Arizona Fish and Game department which is headquartered near his home. He gets to help out with everything from bobcats to gila monsters. What an awesome volunteer experience!

PS Would your parents take you to the koala park to help out?

 

[Riley]

thanks pythonmum!! ill give them a call tommorow! where abouts is the koala park?

 

[pythonmum]

There's a koala park in Castle Hill, but you'd probably need your parents to drive you there. Problem is they don't really have herps, but do have some other cool native animals.

 

[BenReyn]

That's a really good idea of yours Riley, I was going to do DOE, then I remembered how lazy i was.
I hope all goes well, keep us posted!
Ben.

 

[Riley]

alright thans pythonmum! cheers BenReyn
bump

 

[gregcranston]

He he, I remember the old DOE days, I did my volunteering at a wildlife carer that specialized in Koalas. This was in Eastern Victoria. It was so much fun, good luck finding somewhere cool to do yours!

 

[-Peter]

I have had to people do D of E with me as part of Sydney Wildlife.