Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary was fortunate enough to move to its new site in February, just before the first lockdown hit.
Despite the premises remaining as a building site for much of the year due to Covid restrictions, the team has worked tirelessly to rescue and care for over 4000 birds and animals from all over Yorkshire and County Durham, making 2020 the Sanctuary’s busiest year ever.
The majority of casualties were birds including seabirds, ducks, birds of prey, garden birds, and swans and geese.
The charity also helped hundreds of hedgehogs, rabbits and smaller mammals, along with some deer, badgers, foxes, amphibians and bats.
There were the additional challenges of the Avian Flu outbreak, and the Sanctuary’s fundraising shop being closed for much of the year. However, members of the public have rallied to support the Sanctuary, giving donations to keep the patients fed and providing items such as wood chippings and used Christmas trees for the enclosures.
A spokesperson for the Sanctuary said,
“It’s all thanks to the donations and support we’ve received, as well as our volunteers. We couldn’t have achieved all of this in 2020 without this help.”
The end of the year saw the completion of the building work for the new aviaries, including a 60-foot long one for the owls to provide them with ample flying room during recovery.
Contributions to the building works or environment enrichment would be very welcome, at https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/9517.
