UK Wildlife Transporters was set up because I saw that up to 30% of wildlife casualties and orphans weren’t getting to medical or rehabilitative care, just because the person who found them couldn’t transport them.
It didn’t seem fair and it seemed fixable.
I thought, “How hard can it be to set up a national network of Drivers, to fill this gap?” And so UKWT was born.
It was an overnight success, in that we had almost 800 Drivers sign up over a very short period and our services were immediately in demand. You can check out a graphic of all the wildlife we helped in our first 18 months: https://www.ukwildlifetransporters.org/achieved-so-far
But then what happened? The demand grew and, even after switching to a more efficient structure - because we were running off volunteers alone - we couldn’t meet it. Volunteers are wonderful but most people volunteer around the main parts of their life (their jobs, their family, their leisure activities and holidays) and they are great and kind people but they are an unreliable work force.
There are many Rescues across the UK - for example - who have capacity for more wildlife casualties/orphans than they are currently accepting because they don’t have the volunteers to help ensure at least a minimum standard of care for all of the animals if they were full. If they had paid staff, they could help a lot more wildlife.
I set up UKWT because I love our planet and I love our UK wildlife. I think that we - humans and every other creature - are all incredible, unique planetary creatures and we all deserve to live our best lives and we all deserve a helping hand when we are struggling. I find great joy in helping another creature (human, animal, bug and even 'botanical' creatures). UKWT is a fully selfish effort for me: helping other creatures to get a second chance and live wild and free again, able to live and love, is a way of spending my time that I find deeply rewarding.
And that is why I am fundraising for staff. So, is it all about the money?
Yes… Yes, it’s ‘all about the money’ in the sense that we need a reliable set of humans (which means staff) to put in a minimum set of hours to make sure that there is a reliable structure in place that acts as a safety net for poorly/orphaned wildlife, so that they can always get to their second chance. [Here is a blog post I wrote about this topic: https://www.ukwildlifetransporters.org/.../i-want-to...]
Yes…. Because, what is ‘money’? Money is just a tool that we humans have created for ourselves to trade between ourselves and enable ourselves to have what we need (shelter, food, water, fun, comfort, medicine etc). Money is what we make it and I want money to be used as ‘love’ and ‘caring’ and a reliable (and yes I do keep repeating that word for a reason) emergency service for when wildlife need us to help them, by getting them to medical care that could save their lives.
When money is spent on food then money is literally ‘used to feed us’. When it is spent on our homes then money is literally ‘used to shelter us’. I want to bring in and spend money on loving our UK wildlife: I want money, spent through UKWT, to be ‘used to enable medical and rehabilitative care and hopefully a second chance at a wild and free life’. To me, when spent lovingly, in this way, ‘money is love: it is a force of love’.
If you think that wildlife deserve to have a helping human hand when struggling and you like the work that I am doing - https://www.ukwildlifetransporters.org/2024-fundraiser - please help us. Any donation from yourself will be spent to fund one of 2 things…. One: Staff (which is just funding humans, so that they can have shelter, food etc themselves, whilst dedicating time to the saving of wild lives) and Two: Running costs (our website, map, phone, email etc).
Why should you trust me to spend money wisely?
You shouldn’t, not out of hand. It is why I have presented a 32 page proposal explaining every step, every penny and every motivation, in full. It tells you where every penny will go: https://www.ukwildlifetransporters.org/wildlife-care-effort
If you like what I am doing, if you think that a wild life is worth the £3 that it will cost us to try and save him/her, please help us to help them, by supporting our fundraiser or attending our events (links below)…
Our Digital Products Shop: https://ko-fi.com/wildliving/shop
Finally... Once I have raised this £30K, am I going to be fundraising again in 6 months time? No... I have a whole funding/sponsorship plan laid out to set up as soon as we are up and running again that will reliably guarantee us between £5,000 - £7,000 a month BUT we need to be up and running and offering both proof of services AND other bits of proof of how important what we do is, to get this funding long term. It's a catch 22: we need the funding short term, to secure funding for the very long term.
What if I'm wrong...? (I'm not, I promise, I was part way through securing this monthly funding source when UKWT collapsed under the demand and I couldn't draw in the funding for an emergency service that suddenly wasn't operating BUT I can set it all up successfully once we are up and running again and then it will be this monthly funding that keeps us going)
Well, here's the worst that will come from you contributing towards our £30,000 target to help wildlife for 6 months...
- Every Vet Practice in the UK will be offered the Vet Wildlife Support Package (helping them to help wildlife in practice, with or without Driver support).
- At least 100 Vet Practices in the UK will be allocated a team of Drivers (so, even if we collapse after 6 months, that's still 100 Practices that will have Drivers that they can keep using if they just have a little donation box by the till to fund the fuel, which some Vet Practices already have, to fund their own wildlife efforts, separate from us).
- Every WCB Wildlife Rescue can have a team of Drivers from us (so, even if we collapse after 6 months, that's still a lot of Rescues that will have more Drivers that they can keep using and they just need to fundraise to cover ongoing fuel expenses).
- During the 6 months that we will be operating, we will be ensuring that over 10,000 wild lives get to emergency medical/rehabilitative care: even if that's all that we manage, are they not worth £3 each?
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