Sunday, 17 July 2012 ....
Saturday, 11 August 2012 ....Canberra: city of animal lovers
SELF-DESCRIBED protector of animals Nora Preston sends out a media release.
It is about a dog she alleges is being mistreated. It sits on the owner's verandah and she has taken photos of it and sent them to her mailing list.
''The dog still has not been seized and is still out there in the freezing day and night with no kennel,'' she writes.
So I ask her how much trouble she has been in, doing this sort of community activism.
''They abuse you,'' she says matter-of-factly, but does not want to say too much more about it.
She only adds: ''When I do that, I'm not on my own. We try to calm them down and just explain to them what they need to do to avoid legal action. Sometimes it takes months.''
Canberra has its fair share of animal lovers.
A small number of them take their animal enthusiasm to the next level, campaigning in the media and sometimes trying as hard as they can to remain anonymous as they break the law.
However, Preston says she does not endorse law breaking, such as trespass. It would only hurt her ability to get things done the right way, she says, through lobbying.
She does not approve of the damaging of private property. She is more of a supporter of the media campaign, despite the dirty looks she might get from pet owners.
She has no qualms about stepping in and calling the authorities on short notice.
When she saw a man displaying cockatoo wings on the dashboard of his car, she called the police.
''I could just imagine him ripping [the wings] off a live cockatoo,'' she says (although there is no proof the man did this).
She also stepped in when she saw a cockatoo being ''stomped on'' at Queanbeyan in April. ''That cockatoo is still being rehabilitated, it's been on antibiotics.''
The bird is now with one of the 20 volunteers in her Wildlife Carers Group.
Preston, the owner of two cats and one dog, started bird watching in the 1970s. After joining the local Wildlife Foundation in the 1980s, she later founded her own organisation, which she says is funded from her own pocket and receives up to 10 calls a day regarding animal welfare matters.
The group doesn't give names to animals it rescues, although Preston is not against the practice.
The focus is on healing the animals' wounds until they are released rather than handling them. ''We don't want to turn them into pets,'' she says.
Each year Preston says her organisation receives dozens of calls about snakes in backyards, echidnas on the road and possums in the roof.
A person must be patient to remove a possum from a house.
''They are very territorial,'' she says. A possum box must be added to the roof, so the possum can mark it with its smells. When this is done, the box can be put in a nearby tree and the entry into the roof blocked.
Occasionally when her volunteers are called out to possum jobs, the noises in the roof turn out to be rats and mice.
''We don't deal with those,'' she says. ''People have to call the pest controllers.''
If echidnas are picked up from the road they should be placed off the bitumen in the direction they are travelling in. Otherwise, they may become disoriented from where their young, known as puggles, are located.
So how much animal cruelty, whether deliberate or through ignorance, exists in the ACT?
Figures show that the territory's RSPCA animal welfare inspectors responded to 1100 complaints in the past year. Further action only needed to be taken in less than three per cent of those cases, according to the RSPCA chief executive Michael Linke.
In the past year, six animals in the ACT have been so neglected they have been seized immediately.
Some of the worst cases end up in court.
Clearly Preston believes her Wildlife Carers Group has an important part to play in tending to the animals that the RSPCA and other organisations do not get to.
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-new ... z23BkW7ld3
My old Directorate had serious concerns about the activities this woman had been up to ever since she refused to comply with her licence to rescue and rehabilitate animals which was subsequently cancelled some years ago. imagine their surprise when she was given media time and got a bit carried away with the whole situation and confessed to breaking the law.Wildlife carer could faces charges after sick native birds seized
Police, conservation officers and the RSPCA raided the home of a self-styled wildlife warrior yesterday, seizing seven native birds in poor health.
Authorities raided the home on Drysdale Circuit in Kambah before midday yesterday, finding four sulphur crested cockatoos, one king parrot, one eastern rosella and one wood duck.
The home belongs to Nora Preston, founding president of the Wildlife Carers Group.
The group describes itself as a wildlife rehabilitation service and has been operating since 2004.
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The birds were taken for treatment and examination by vets at the RSPCA, according to chief executive officer Michael Linke.
Ms Preston could now face charges of animal cruelty, attracting a maximum of two years' jail and $20,000 worth of fines, and holding native animals without a licence.
''The animals were in bad condition, they'll continue to receive treatment here and we'll continue to assist the government with their inquiries,'' Mr Linke said.
Territory and Municipal Services said in a statement that the animals were undergoing health checks to ensure they could be released back into the wild.
The directorate said sick or injured native animals were only allowed to be held without a licence for a maximum period of 48 hours. The RSPCA is the only organisation licensed to rehabilitate native wildlife. But Ms Preston said she did have a licence, claiming she was the victim of ''vicious harassment'' and had only kept the seven birds for a period of 24 hours.
She described the RSPCA's claim that the birds were in poor health as a lie.
Mr Linke said it was uncommon for Canberrans to keep native animals in their homes ''because of the specialist nature of the care''.
''This is why the government has strict rules in place about caring for wild animals, because it is a specialist skill and you need the appropriate training and appropriate licences to make sure you can do it properly.''
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-new ... z23BoOA2E6
Vanity.
