wildlifefriendlyfencing, wildlife friendly fencing

RESCUE FORM

Many of us have wanted to do something about the issue of entanglement of wildlife on barbed wire fences for a long time. Now is your opportunity to make a difference. The information recorded on each Rescue Form will be entered into a database. The collated data will be extremely useful to advocate for:

• Scope of the barbed wire problem
• Best practice rescue techniques for disentangling wildlife from barbed wire
• Wildlife-friendly fencing strategies
• Policy change. For example, the issuing of WFF guidelines for NRM and other funding bodies.
• Legislative change. In some States, landholders with barbed wire fences that entangle wildlife may be legally liable for the deaths, harm or suffering caused; however it has never been tested in court.
  
  Each time you rescue an animal from a barbed wire fence, please go to the website and submit a Rescue Form. It will ask you a number of questions. Please try to answer them all. This information is extremely important to the WFF project. Then, give us your ideas on wildlife-friendly fencing. Many of you have rescued animals from fences for many years and have a wealth of experience. And if you have time after that, tell us a story.

Also of great interest to us are your old records. We realise they will not contain the details in our forms, but we are interested to obtain a comprehensive list of species affected by barbed wire. Please let us know if you can add to the following list, begun from a list compiled by Dr Rodney van der Ree in 1999 "Barbed Wire Fencing as a Hazard for Wildlife".

BATS
Spectacled flying fox (Pteropus conspicillatus)
Grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalis)
Black flying fox (pteropus alecto)
Little Red flying fox (Pteropus scapulatus)
Nyctimene robinsonii (Tube-nosed fruitbat)

Long-eared bat (Nyctopilus bifax)
Ghost bats (Macroderma gigas)
White-striped freetail (Tadarida australis)

BIRDS
Kookaburra, Galah, Rock Dove, Australian Magpie, White-winged Chough, Metallic Starling
Royal Spoonbill, Silver Gull, White-faced Heron, White-necked (Pacific) Heron, Short-tailed shearwater, Australian Pelican, Nankeen Night Hern, Buff-banded Rail, Little Button-quail, Red-chested Button-quail, Lathams Snipe, Bush Stone-curlew, Black-fronted Dotterel, Masked lapwing, Rainbow Lorikeet, Red-rumped parrot, Sulphut-crested Cockatoo, Little Corella, Night Parrot, Bourke's Parrot, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Nankeen Kestrel, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Brown Falcon, Peregrine Falcon, Australian Hobby, Chestnut-breated Quail-thrush, Common Bronzewing, Flock Bronzewing, Crested Pidgeon, Inland Dotterel, Galah, Australian Ringneck, Budgerigar, Zebra Finch, Southern Boobook, Barn Owl, Grass Owl, Tawny Frogmouth, Australian Owlet-nightjar, Masked Owl
Sarus Crane, Brolga, Australian Bustard, Southern Cassowary

GLIDERS
Mahogany glider (Petaurus gracilis)
Sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps)
Greater glider (Petauroides volans)
Squirrel glider (Petaurus norfolcensis)
Yellow-bellied glider (Petaurus australis)

OTHER
Agile wallaby, Tasmanian Pademelon
Brush-tailed Bettong, Grassland Melomys
Red fox

Photo: Jenny Maclean		Photo: Marcia Russell.

OUTCOMES FORM
The outcomes form will also provide essential information for the WFF project. We are interested to know what percentage of animals are eventually released, and the degree of intervention required.

Photo:Marcia Russell. This bat was released after 2 weeks in cre		Photo: Jenny Maclean. This bat was released after 8 weeks.

STORY FORM
Your stories will help put a personalise the information we gather. It’s very easy to get lost with statistics, and lose contact with the individual animals and the emotions of the people involved. We’re very happy for you to nominate a new category and add a story.

Some Ideas for stories:

Your first barbed wire rescue
Your favourite rescue story with a happy ending
Your most unusual rescue
Your saddest rescue story

To get the stories started, here's a great story from Kerryn Parry-Jones (photo above) from near Gosford in NSW.

THE FUNNIEST RESCUE

Thats me on the boat and Jessi Grace (our current ARC chairperson) in the water. The photo was taken by one of the family that called us...I think it was with Jessi's camera. It was a funny rescue! The ARC phone rang at about 8pm and I got the bad news in installments. "We have a bat rescue.........Oh yes Its on barbed wire.......Oh no Its out the back of Jilliby (a good hour away).......Agggggg! Its over water.........You're joking! Its in the middle of the dam........(swear word) Its about 4 ft above the water........(ominous silence) They have a canoe........(more silence)" I rang up the people and asked whether they could organise some lights. To do them justice they were very upset and very helpful. They had just got back from a week-end away which is why they rang so late. Then I rang Jessi and picked her up on the way. We both managed to collect useful bat gear...we had two of everything that could possibly be needed to remove a bat.

We got there and it was pitch dark.....thank heavens for sensible people. They had rigged some lead lights and some torches. We tried to wade out to the bat....but the water was chest high so that was out. I thought about cutting the wire but it was new wire and tightly tensioned and I didn't think that would help either the bat or us. So the canoe it was. But I had to kneel as high as possible so hence Jessie had to steady the canoe. Luckily the bat was fairly quiet and I got him off fairly easily.

So we said good bye..and slooshed our way to the car. Despite all our equipment neither of us had brought a change of clothes. So we stripped to the skin and arrayed ourselves in bat towels. Jessi rehydrated the bat and we giggled all the way home. I was driving ever so carefully because our giggles were anticipating the picture of us being hauled over by the Police. We still have the bat, he's called Moses (for obvious reasons) and he probably wont fly again....but he may. We are trying the massage and macadamia oil treatment. I dont know about Jessi and I...our last rescue was rather hysterical as well. We kept a sole baby bat alive on high electricity wires in the heat this year for 36 hours until the Electricity people could come....we used a super soaker fired from the roof of my car.

Kerryn Parry-Jones

THE SADDEST RESCUE
Five years ago I attended one of the saddest barbed wire rescues I have ever come across. To this day it remains quite vivid in my memory.

We all know golf courses that use high chain mesh fencing with 3 tiers of barbed wire strung above it. This particular golf course had also planted rather close by some beautiful native trees, now in flower and just begging for a flying-fox to have a taste.

An innocent juvenile Grey-headed flying-fox flew in for a closer look and didn’t see the barbed wire fence. One of his wings became entangled on the sharp and destructive barbs. Had this been his only problem he may have made a full recovery and been returned to the wild. However, the panicking young bat tried to bite his wing free of the barbs, causing horrific damage to his mouth. One of the barbs penetrated his palate and then proceeded to enter the back of his eye socket, causing his eyeball and the barb to protrude through the front of the eye socket.

His injuries were so extreme and had occurred in such a way that it was impossible to remove him from the fence while he was conscious. The only choice was to euthanase him on the fence. He was in extreme pain and we were able to end his suffering.

To this day that particular fence remains in place, and every time I drive past it I remember the young flying-fox that lost his life there. Please consider the suffering of not only the flying-foxes but other animals like gliders and birds that innocently become caught on barbed wire. Ask yourself the question. “Do I really need a barbed wire fence????”

Leanne Baird
President
Bat Rescue Inc.d

THE SCARIEST RESCUE

In the Tweed we have a lot of properties with wire dividing a dam into two. This allows property owners to carry different stock at the same watering location i.e. horses on one side, and cattle on the other. Unfortunately, they are great snag traps for belly skimming bat drinkers, who skim the water surface, and then hit the fence. Called out to such an incident one morning, it was with some trepidation that I entered the dam: towels over shoulder, and tools in the pockets. The bat; a heavily pregnant grey-headed flying-fox was snagged by one wing, and remained remarkably calm with my approach. This may have been because as each step progressed nearer in that foot sucking mud, I was actually getting deeper i.e. getting shorter. Upon reaching her, I was chest deep in water, and my tools were submerged in my pockets. Having convinced myself that I was not going to drown, I was then presented with a piece of information that I could have done without.

The property owner (who was nice and dry on the bank) decided at that point to inform me that the dam contained a huge eel the size of an anaconda.OK - he actually said the words "really big eel." My mind turned the unseen beast into an anaconda which was invisible (and no doubt approaching with murderous intent) in the murky water. Spurred on by this information, the grey girl was soon safely off the fence, and I was safe on dry land - not dragged away to some underwater lair. My sneakers however, would never be the same again.

This lovely natured grey gave birth a few days later to a bouncing baby girl, and both were successfully released later down the track. To my horror, I had a second grey girl caught in the same spot exactly one week later which completely finished my sneakers off. Entering that dam for the second time was much scarier, beause second time around I knew before entering the water that it was inhabited by a giant eel with a diet preference for wildlife carers.

The second female was fine, but required much longer in care due to extensive membrane damage, and unfortunately aborted her dead pup within 24 hours. After the second incident, the owner of the property (who was really concerned) replaced all wire over his dam with high tensile plain wire. One more safe spot to drink in the Tweed. I never did see the eel.

Dave Pinson

MY FIRST RESCUE

During these summer months I regularly go down to the creek to bathe in a new watering hole created by the recent floods. Unfortunately this is situated next to where the neighbour's 4 strand barbed wire flood fence used to be which is now strewn down the creek, and anchored just up from this hole. On this particular day I noticed something dangling from the wire and as I approached I recognised a snake neck turtle flapping about, startled by my proximity. It's knee joint was caught on one of the barbs and it was suspended high and dry now that the creek waters had receded. Thought about getting a camera but i was too concerned with the pain that this reptile would be experiencing. I quickly unhooked the turtle and without further ado it swam of down the creek seemingly unharmed. I immediately took the time to clear up the fence from down the creek, the second time in the past 12 months, and spoke to the neighbour about installing a plain strand of electric wire. It's a cheaper and more flexible option, is easier to recover than barbed and in most cases cheaper to repair. He didn't seem keen, once his cattle were hungry a single strand wouldn't hold them back, best keep to the barbs. Surley though this is a management issue, turf them out of the paddock once they're on the lookout for greener pastures. Anyhow, when time comes to rebuild the fence - everyone seems to be waiting in case another flood eventuates - I'll state my case once again, but tradition is a hard master to change.

And some weeks later ...........Success!! Yesterday my neighbour phoned wanting to repair the flood fence. I stated my case again for a plain wire electric fence, explaining cheapness, ease of construction, ease of recovery, little injury to people, cattle and wildlife. When he arrived we agreed that a two strand fence would suffice and we hung it together with him gaining a bit more of the creek - but oh well, I see it as a trade off.

Darren Williams

lifefriendlyfencing, wildlife friendly fencin