Helping the Flightless: WA Seabird Rescue
These multimedia stories were created by ECU Journalism students and are shared in collaboration with RTRFM.
A story of courageous volunteers going above and beyond to rescue, rehabilitate and provide a future for injured wildlife by Caleb Runciman.
The following contains imagery and discussion of injured animals, readers discretion is advised.
Giving up their time to make a difference, Western Australian Seabird Rescue (WASR) and its volunteers aim sky high as they conduct the rescue and rehabilitation of injured and sick birds across the state’s coastal south west.
Spanning Perth to Albany, the growing humility of the public has seen the organisation amass over 100 volunteers since its 2003 startup in Mandurah.
Receiving no continual government funding, their reliance on grants and donations, paired with a lack of public education on environmental practices see rescues occur on a weekly, even daily basis under stressed conditions.
Often putting themselves in dangerous situations when saving animals, volunteers attend compulsory training in order to safely implement rescue and rehabilitation techniques.
“For birds such as darters we have to wear goggles and long-handed gloves as their defence mechanism is a sharp beak… and they will take your eye out,” said WASR volunteer Danny Willmott.
“When you come across a bird in distress, you’d like to think they’d say ‘ah, the hero is here to rescue me’, when in reality they look at us and say that person is going to eat me.”
Costing $250 to outfit a new volunteer, essential equipment such as net launchers costing $1600, and birds like pelicans consuming large amounts of fish costing hundreds, financial pressures continue to dictate WASR’s rescue capabilities.
Lacking an office or rehabilitation centre in the Mandurah branch, volunteers continue to operate rescue equipment and sometimes bird rehabilitation out of their personal homes.
For WASR volunteer Lee Beavis, this has happened more than once.
“I have an enclosure outside, most of them stay in little puppy playpens.”
“I have just been looking after a little black cormorant over the last couple of months, she started losing weight so I just sent her up to WA wildlife to get her health checked.”
“They are very cute little birds, they eat fish and we have to give them a seabird tablet each day to provide them with adequate nutrition.”
“Every three to four hours I have to feed them or provide treatment, sometimes even in the night,” said Lee.
Earning the 2021 RSPCA humane award after alerting and assisting the Mandurah council with the removal of dangerous netting that was affecting local birds, the efforts of WASR have not gone unnoticed.
“They would hang by their heads with their feet dangling and that’s a horrible way to die,” described Danny Willmott when reflecting on the netting incident.
“They would have suffered and died if we had not intervened.”
“We probably saved 50 birds in that incident; it is definitely a highlight of my time here.”
Based in Mandurah, passionate volunteers such as Danny, continue to reflect on the reality of being a WA Seabird Rescue volunteer.
On the animal welfare frontline, poor recreational fishing practices are the catalysts for most rescues, with public education remaining an essential part of preserving Western Australia’s seabird population.
Arranging Facebook campaigns targeting fishermen and families who attend waterways, advocacy for the picking up litter, fishing line removal, abstaining from feeding birds, and reducing human engagement all act as preventative measures that would otherwise result in usual rescue operations.
Although reliant on local vets and organisations like WA Wildlife, WASR has individually taken the call to action with a publicly available phone hotline, where members of the public are urged to call when a bird appears in distress.
(Pictured Left to Right) Barbara Sing, Danny Willmott, Lee Beavis, Joanne McVey
WASR rescue can be supported via their website, for rescues, the public is urged to call the WASR hotline on (08) 6102 8464.
