There is a network of rescue stations for abandoned and injured animals in the Czech Republic. If you find such an animal, you can find out where the nearest rescue station is and also contact it in the “Zvíře v nouzi (Animal in Need)” app on your mobile phone. Please, always call the station before you touch the animal! The station will advise you on how best to proceed. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for people to take for example bunnies or young roe deer from the wild, which was not abandoned by its mother as she only went to get food or is somewhere nearby. By such actions, people unknowingly turn such animals into orphans which then have very little chance of surviving in human care as such small young can hardly survive without maternal care on an artificial diet. On the contrary, experienced rescue experts on the phone will advise us that, unlike mammals, we can easily touch young birds without the mother then rejecting the offspring and that often it is helpful just to place the fallen young bird on a raised place (tree branch) and the mother will find it or it will fly away if it is big enough. Common swifts often only need to be lifted off the ground and thrown into the air to be able to fly away. Birds on the ground would soon be found by a predator, nowadays unfortunately often by domestic cats, in front of which a hopping bird has no chance to survive.
In these times, when the planet is inhabited by more than 7 billion people, wild animals are facing many threats that we have “set” for them. In the Czech Republic, these are most often deaths or burns of birds on power line wires, windows or car collisions, drowning in swimming pools, water tanks, falling into pipes and other traps, mowing by agricultural machinery…. However, wild animals are also efficiently poisoned, and among such poisoned animals there are often critically endangered species of bird of prey, such as the sea eagle or the Western Marsh Harrier. Without these birds of prey, rodent populations are overgrowth, which cause damage to agricultural land, and therefore farmers poison them and everything is repeated. If we destroy one part of the chain in nature, the whole cycle and natural balance will be disturbed. Moreover, our management in the countryside also doesn’t contribute to keeping a natural balance, but this topic would need a separate chapter.
The organization called Jaro Jaroměř is involved in the proper management of the landscape and its protection, and it also operates a rescue station for wild animals. I am very glad that I was able to visit this station, because people do fantastic work there, often for very little money or completely voluntarily. They care for, heal and literally “rear” individuals of various species, and if their health allows it, these animals are released back into the wild. Let’s support these dedicated people in their work, which they do for us as well. For our country. Each contribution counts. Or let’s help with the work in the station itself. But above all, each of us can think about our behaviour and thus minimize the risk of injury or death of wild animals. Let’s make our pools, windows and pipes secure. Let’s not touch wild animals, unless they are visibly injured and need our care. Let’s be properly informed people who are not indifferent to nature around us.