On the phones

I mentioned recently that Donna and I had attended BARN's AGM. One of the things that came up at the meeting was the fact that they're desperately looking for volunteers to man the rescue phone occassionally. At the moment, Natasja our president does it on the weekends, Binnie our secretary does it during the week and two of our support members, Len and Barbara, do one afternoon a week.

Donna suggested we volunteer for one weekend a month. After spending the last twelve years answering telephones at work, I wasn't too keen on doing it at home, even if it was for a good cause.

Well anyway, we're on the rescue phone this weekend.

We've found the easiest part of the job is dealing with the people that call up. A lot of the calls are from the RSPCA, but most are members of the public. Sometimes we give advice on what to do before a carer gets there, but usually it's just a case of getting their details, then getting a carer out to them.

The hard part is getting carers in some areas. Parts of north Brisbane are a bit of a blackspot for us and we don't like to send anyone too far, or too often. On a Saturday morning it's not unusual to get a carer when they're out doing their shopping too. In that case, they have to finish their shopping, go home, then go out to the rescue.

We've had a couple of funny ones too. There was the call passed onto us from the RSPCA about a bird with a broken wing. The contact number they'd been given turned out to be a butcher's shop and they knew nothing about an injured bird. I suspect any birds he may have had were beyond help from us.

Another one was a kookaburra that couldn't fly that was in someone's front yard. The carer that went out called us back to say it was actually a tawny frogmouth. The colouring is very similar in the two birds, but the beak is completely different.

We even had a call last night from the ambos. They'd found an injured ringtail possum in a shopping centre carpark while attending a patient. The ambo was a New Zealander and said the possum didn't look like any of the possums back in NZ. The NZ possums are actually brushtails imported from Australia and are now a pest.

It was actually nice to get a call back from the ambo later to make sure the carer had managed to find the possum. They'd had to take their patient to hospital, so couldn't hang around. She thanked us for what we do, which seemed funny considering all that they do, but it was certainly appreciated.

It's definitely a good learning experience and we'll be doing it again next month. It's coming into the silly season (spring) so it's probably going to be busier too.

Now if only we could get more carers that are available for rescues and some more telephone operators for the other weekends.

If you live in Brisbane and are interested in becomming a wildlife carer, or would just like to help out as a support member, check out the website here, or give us a call on the rescue number 0405056066.