Native Animal Rescue News

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

To all our members and supporters, we wish you all a Happy and Safe Christmas.  We have appreciated your support and encouragement throughout 2011 and look forward to fulfilling more dreams in 2012.  A safe and healthy welcome to 2012 to everyone.

Our Patron

Native Animal Rescue is very pleased to announce that His Excellency, Mr Malcolm McCusker AO QC, Governor of Western Australia, has accepted an invitation to be the Patron of Native Animal Rescue. This is an honour, which we greatly appreciate and we look forward to the ongoing support of His Excellency, as Patron, towards the work of Native Animal Rescue, within the community.

The Governor and Mrs McCusker visited NAR on Monday 19 December with their children James and Mary, to view the facilities and meet the Board, Executive and volunteers. James asked great questions, well above his age. Mary certainly loves her animals and the Governor and Mrs McCusker embraced our work and found the visit very informative and helpful for the Governor to represent us as our Patron.

Grant for River Connections Project

The River Connections project is now up and running. The WA Attorney General, Christian Porter MLA attended NAR in September to view NAR's facilities, meet the team and handover a cheque for $199,900 from the Criminal Property Confiscation Grants Program; funding for the program for tne next two years. This an exciting new project jointly initiated by NAR, the Youth Policing Division and Police and Community Youth Centres (PCYC), aimed at getting at-risk young people involved in animal rescue and environmental projects on the Swan and Canning Rivers. Click here to check out the full story on the River Connections project.

NAR and Iraq come together

On Sunday September 11, NAR hosted a visit of 20 Iraqi agricultural scientists. The scientists were in Australia to undertake a five week training course at the University of Western Australia on Crop Improvement for Iraq and this event was one of a number of weekend activities for the group to expose them to Australian life. This is the second such event that NAR has hosted for Iraqi visitors to UWA and both have proved to be extremely successful and greatly enjoyed by the Iraqi people.

As well as an opportunity for the Iraqis to gain an appreciation of Australian native wildlife and to be able to come into close contract with a number of iconic Australian species, it was also a very enjoyable time for NAR staff to meet with visitors from this war-affected country and enjoy a halal meal and a good time together. Of course, everything had to be communicated through an interpreter, but that proved to be a fairly insignificant issue.

Woylie Connection

The research project on Woylies, being undertaken at NAR jointly by Murdoch University and DEC has been under way since early in the new year. The animals have settled in really well and are thriving in every sense. Every female has given birth to young and we have already relocated some of those young out of the project to DEC sites set up for Woylie conservation. For more information click here.

Black Cockatoos

Our black cockatoo facility has been housing black cockatoos requiring rehabilitation, since the beginning of the year. While it has the capacity to house up to 50 or more cockatoos, at any one time, the good news is that it has never yet had to cater for that many. It has come close a couple of time when bush fires were threatening other sites where black cockatoos are being housed, but the fires in each case have been controlled and relocation of birds has been avoided. The best news would be that the facility is empty, but of course that is not the case and we have seen eight birds released so far, with another 10 birds currently undergoing rehabilitation. For more information click here.

NAR Rescue Packs

The NAR Rescue Packs are available for purchase at $15 per pack. These rescue packs provide a temporary pack for carrying small animals and provide the basic equipment you need to rescue an injured or sick native animal. Packs are free to financial members and most members should have now received their pack. If you have not yet received one, contact us to make arrangements to call in and collect one or have it sent to you. Non members can purchase the rescue packs by contacting NAR.

You may like to purchase extra packs to give to family or friends as gifts.

Could your workplace sell them for NAR? If so, please contact NAR to discuss how we might work together to achieve that. We would love to see one in every car boot to provide safe and secure transport for injured native wildlife. Check out further details at the NAR Shop.

Toobuxawik

Have you seen NAR's new TV commercial yet on TV. It has been featured regularly on Channels 1, 10 and 11. If you have not seen it you can check it out on the home page of the website. The TVC is promoting our Toobuxawik program.

Would you like to become a regular financial supporter of Native Animal Rescue's work with native animals and its other community service projects? If so, please consider joining our Toobuxawik program.

Toobuxawik is just what it sounds - $2 a week. If you donate two dollars, or more, a week to Native Animal Rescue, you will be part of a very powerful funding initiative that will enable Native Animal Rescue to do much more to help our native animals, particularly those that are endangered, and develop our other community service projects.

If just 1000 people took up the challenge of Toobuxawik, for less than the cost of a cup of coffee or an ice-cream each week, NAR would have over $100,000 a year to invest in our community service programs and our work with native animals. If 5% of the people of WA joined Toobuxawik, our revenue from the program would exceed $10 million per year. Imagine what that could do to help our most endangered species and the other community service projects we could undertake. Consider inviting your friends or work colleagues to join Toobuxawik with you. All it takes is the power of one.

The power of this program does not come from the amount donated, it comes from the fact that small donations are made regularly. Even if you cannot afford $2 per week, a lesser amount in time adds up and when your donations are combined with those of everyone else, it has an amazing impact on what we can achieve.

Please give serious consideration to your capacity to support our native animals in this way.

Meet the Team

Without volunteers, we could not do what we do; we could not exist.  We therefore thought it would be a good idea over time to introduce you to some of the people making NAR the success that it is. This time around, we are introducing you to two people, John Lemon, a member of the NAR Board, and Tanya Irwin-King, a member of the Executive Committee and Leader of our Black Cockatoo Team.

John has been a member of the NAR Board for the past 6 years and is the Perth Zoo's appointee to the Board. At the Zoo, John is Curator of Operations, responsible for all operational aspects of managing the Perth Zoo animal collection and leading the Life Sciences Directorate team. John has been in the Zoo industry for 23 years and has worked in zoos across Australia and overseas and has a real passion for in-situ conservation and community development.

During his spare time John is Chairman of Painted Dog Conservation Inc (www.painteddogconservation.iinet.net.au); a non-profit organisation, established in October 2003 to provide support for projects in Africa that are actively conserving the endangered African Wild Dog, also known as the Painted Hunting Dog or Painted Wolf. Originally focussed on the Painted Dog Research Project in Zimbabwe, they also support projects in Zambia and Namibia. John is now also the pending chairman of the Zambian Carnivore Programme. This sees John regularly travel to Africa with his wife Angela, to undertake field work on all facets of their projects from animal translocations, research, rehabilitation, reintroductions, anti-poaching, community education etc.

John provides an excellent link between NAR and staff at Perth Zoo, which enables us to tap into the valuable expertise of Zoo vet and keeper staff in relation to care and rehabilitation of wildlife and design of facilities.

Tanya Irwin-King

Tanya started at NAR as a volunteer in June 2007 after completing DEC’s Basic Wildlife Rehabilitator’s Course.  She became a shift supervisor in 2008 and in 2010 was appointed to the Animal Management Committee.  In 2011 Tanya was appointed Leader of the Black Cockatoo Team and was elected to the Executive Committee at the 2011 AGM.

Tanya has had the pleasure of seeing five Carnaby black cockatoos released earlier in 2011 at Yanchep, after being rehabilitated in NAR’s purpose built black cockatoo rehabilitation facility.  She also is a home carer for some of the kangaroo and joey possums that come into NAR’s care.  Tanya is well supported by husband John and sons Simon and Todd and NAR greatly appreciates the involvement and spuport of the family.

Tanya’s love of wildlife and her experiences at NAR have seen her undertake studies in Veterinary Nursing. She has just completed the first of two years working towards her Certificate IV at Polytechnic West.

Volunteering at NAR

Most of our current 170 active volunteers are caring for the animals, but we have many who are involved in lots of other activities that are necessary for NAR to function. If for example you are prepared to volunteer your skills in:-

• Database programming;
• Website management:
• Newsletter preparation;
• Writing funding submissions, reports, etc;