Ireland's only wildlife hospital urges state to take action as it faces uncertain future

Ireland's only dedicated wildlife hospital faces an uncertain future as it has to leave its current location next month.

The Wildlife Rehabilitation Hospital currently based at the back of Tara Na Rí pub, at Garlow Cross on the outskirts of Navan has treated more than 2,500 animals since February.

There are currently around 30 animals on site at the wildlife hospital at the minute. In there busy season Spring, they have had 450 injured or sick wild animals on site at one time.

Aoife McPartlin, Education Manager at Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland, says they feel the Government should step in to help provide this service. Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland programme, this morning she said:

"Given all of the talk of the climate and the biodiversity emergency and it is just talk, from our perspective we haven't seen any in put at all in terms of actually stepping up and helping in that regard with our own wildlife on our own door step.

"We are really up against it time wise, We are working really hard to get the current patients up and out before we go on the 3rd January."

On December 10th they will stop admitting injured animals and it is not clear when a new site will be located and how long it will take them to relocate and get up and running again.

"The wildlife hospital is a place for animals from all over the country to come to be treated for various illnesses and accidents and a lot of them are orphaned as well in orphan season as we call it which is early spring through to late summer.

"In response to the covid pandemic when people were out walking and things like that they were discovering wildlife and people with other practices around the country were just finding that they were overwhelmed and they just couldn't cope with the influx so we thought right we'll jump into it now and try and go for it and get this off the ground."

They set up the hospital in Navan in February this year, when the McCarthy family who run the Tara Na Ri pub offered them the use of the idle stable yard and fields surrounding the pub.

The McCarthy family has been granted planning permission to redevelop the site into a hotel, shop, restaurant and pub.

Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland have been looking for alternative sites for the hospital for a number of months and are actively engaging with Meath County Council to secure a permanent home. The WRI say a potential greenfield site has been located in Lobinstown.

John Mc Carthy owner of Tara Na Ri Pub said:

"This time last year they were in need of emergency accommodation to meet a critical need that they had in terms of animal care and we were in a position be it fortunately or unfortunately with the pub being closed that we were able to offer a facility for them.

"We had a stable block to the rear of the pub so they set up and put the animals into the stables. The arrangement was that they would remain there for a twelve month period in the hope that displaying what they could offer."

Pádraic Fogarty of the Irish Wildlife Trust says that the fact that the hospital faces an uncertain future is devastating.

"We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis at the moment so the work that they are doing really is helping to keep those populations thriving and thinking in particular they do work with species like otters that are one of our most protected species.

"We really need to be professional in our approach to protecting the environment so definitely there is a place for volunteers and there is a place for philanthropy and people giving money for donations but it's really terrible that organisations like this have to live in a world of uncertainty and not knowing if they will have a future or not."