Our Work
Working together to help save our bats and wildlife
Severn Wildlife Rescue is a group of like minded and wildlife passionate people who want to preserve bat and wildlife populations in South Wales and Bristol.
We pride ourselves being a non-hierarchical group, from different backgrounds such as ecologists, vets and wildlife enthusiasts, all of whom have a say in the running of our rescue no matter how much experience they have.
Providing concise and up to date training for our volunteers is highly important for us. During the winter months we ensure our volunteers are fully trained and prepped, with qualified carers and vets leading the training presentations.
We hope to one day raise enough funds to purchase our own rescue hospital but for now we are focusing on making our bat flight cage the best it can be and our dormouse project.
We work closely with qualified vets and other rescue organisations to ensure we provide the best care for all of our patients.
Collaborating, we believe, is the only way forward for all wildlife rehabilitators and rescues, to share knowledge, resources and help our wildlife.
Education
Our Bat Flight Cage is wonderful
We are very lucky to have raised funds to purchase this fantastic bespoke bat flight cage in 2020.
The cage was built by Frome Bat Care who offered to sell it to us after they decided to retire.
We soft release baby bats from this cage back into the wild, and Dean Farm Trust a beautiful farm animal sanctuary has allowed us to build the cage in one of their many paddocks.
We have begun to host small education walks about bats at the cage, and we are putting up bat boxes in the adjacent woodland to encourage wild bats into the area.
It is a wonderful spot to release our bats back into the wild and has a fantastic team of people dedicated to its maintenance and use.
Conservation
Working to protect the Hazel Dormouse
We gained funds to put up dormouse boxes at Dean Farm Trust for conservation purposes and to see if there are any in the area.
We left the boxes to settle in for two months and then today with our dormouse licenced ecologist Katie, we checked all 50 boxes.
We found a very chonky male dormouse, weighing 32g in a dormouse box we put up. Getting ready for hibernation.
He had made a somewhat messy nest with a structured chamber in the middle and was very active and healthy. Male dormouse can hold a territory of up to a hectare.
We never thought we would find a dormouse on our first dormouse check, such an amazing feeling.
We popped him back in his nest in the box after health checking him and left him to it.
Katie believes this is the first confirmed sighting of a dormouse for this area, as previous records have been evidence not presence.
Why are doing little things like this so important?
If you are not aware, dormice are in decline in the UK and are protected. You need a special licence that Katie has, to monitor and handle dormice which can take up to several years to get the expertise to achieve.
We are very lucky to be able to learn from her and by finding presence of dormice in an area relatively unmonitored we are able to contribute to research and data trying to work out what our wild populations are doing and to find ways to further protect them.
Our next check will be at the end of next month. This project will be an ongoing project that will need volunteers to help us, so if you are interested click on the button below!