5 Ways to Help Wildlife This Summer
Welcome to summer! The team at Currumbin Wildlife Hospital are wishing you a wonderful summer holiday season.
Summer is also peak trauma time for wildlife, so please help our vet team by reducing human impact. Wildlife in our waterways struggle over school holiday periods as people spend more time in the water with activities like boating and fishing. Just like this Black Swan, treated by vet Jess for hook injuries.
Koala Advocate, Ava Shepherd wants to create awareness for wildlife over these summer months and is holding a jar of hooks & plastics (that have been retrieved from patients) to highlight the issue.
Discarded fishing line and hooks are a death trap for wildlife including waterbirds and turtles. The cost of removing a hook from a pelican’s stomach is $3,000.
Five Ways You Can Help Waterbirds and turtles
- Dispose of your rubbish correctly
- Don’t feed birds while fishing as it encourages them to hang around and increases their chances of injury
- Don’t cast your line near birds
- Safely pick up discarded fishing hooks and lines
- If wildlife is hooked or entangled, don’t cut the line
Another way you can help is to donate to the hospital. Every donation helps our team to continue saving wildlife in need - a service provided free of charge to the community.
Let's work together to keep waterbirds, turtles and all other wildlife safe this summer!