I am tortured by the sadness;  by the faces of the children incarcerated on the Island of Nauru (and so should we all be). How could we refuse the salvation offered in the hand of friendship by New Zealand?                                           

Questions call for answers (there’s a lot of silence out there). It beggars belief that we are living in times Dickensian.

Having recently become a member of WIRES I feel the urgent need to share my enlightened understanding of the process, from a phone call to help an animal in distress, to the eventual fate of that animal.

There are currently 50 members of WIRES, as listed on the contact sheet. Approximately 12 are new members. These members are scattered from the Victorian border, to Cathcart (out past Tantawangalo), to Brogo. According to my calculations this is an area of 20,000sqkm (my maths can always stand corrected).

Thirty-nine of the members are women. I’d estimate 30 of these women are over 60 years old.

Two members have a WIRES endorsed licence to use a fire arm to euthanase an animal that has no hope. The rest of us try to reduce stress, we try to get vet help and often hope the police or a ranger can help. When an animal is critically injured the situation is dire for all involved.

The animals in care range from sugar gilders to bats to echidnas, snakes, kangaroos, possums, parrots, wattle birds and wombats, to name a few. One carer I’m aware of has 6 joeys, another has 8 wombats. 

What I’m trying to say is these few human beings are doing a super human job. They are volunteers, often giving up work hours to look after the animals that are more often than not a victim of human activity. Commonly it’s car accidents and dog or cat attacks.

If we had more WIRES members it would be so much easier. It takes less than $100 and a few weekends a year to play a role in being responsible for our wildlife.  You don’t have to be a carer, but just being informed is invaluable. 

This is a shout out to those men and women who dig deep to care. From their hearts, time and wallets, they pick up the pieces. There are amazingly so few of these active carers in the Valley.

For the rest of us, we can make a difference, simply by driving a bit slower at dusk and dawn, stopping our cats and dogs from wandering and hunting, putting fishing rubbish in the bin (calls come in weekly to rescue seabirds wrapped in fishing line) and generally knowing that the men and woman behind the WIRES (or NANA or Wildlife Rescue, for that matter) number so few and don’t have a magic wand.

Thank you for all that you do.

The recent 4 Corners episode on guns highlighted that the bid to introduce more guns into Australia and to weaken gun laws was mainly one of political ambition, and of financial gun for gun dealers. 

Former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, who was architect, along with John Howard, of the 1996 gun recall told 4 Corners: “There is a muscling up of those making money out of a trade of guns into this country and we need to watch that very closely, lest it lead Australia and the state and territory parliaments and legislatures down the wrong path.”

In making the decision to extend the HuntFest licence with sale of guns until 2022 has the Eurobodalla Shire Council followed the self-destructive path of America? Surely it would have been much wiser to have placed the well-being of the community they were elected to serve before the ambitions of the Australian Sporting Shooters Association and the National Party.