TREVOR WEEKS: Wildlife rescue volunteer completes solo row over the Atlantic

He arrived in Antigua about 1:30am UK time last Tuesday morning ( and a number of us from WRAS sat up to watch the live streaming video of him arriving back to land. There was hardly a dry eye to be found when he stepped off the boat. We are so proud to be associated with Daryl Farmer, he is a legend. A big thank you to his partner Sabine, stepdaughter Ellie and WRAS’s Chris Riddington for all their hard work behind the scenes helping to raise money and for all the updates and information throughout. Plus thank you to everyone at Atlantic Campaigns and the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge for all their support throughout. Daryl has raised more than £12,350 via his just giving page and Go Fund Me pages. Daryl has clearly lost quite a bit of weight but this was expected and planned for. Sporting an amazing beard, for a moment everyone thought Tom Hanks had swapped with Daryl as he stepped of the boat. You can check out the video of him arriving in Antigua and make a donation via our website wildlifeambulance.org. One of Daryl’s favourite animals is the badger, and we have had two this week. Badger Trust Sussex called WRAS asking if we could assist with an injured badger in Hove. The poor creature had been found in a hedge in a bad way. WRAS rescuer Tony rushed over and brought it back to our hospital at Whitesmith. After discussing with our vets, Chris and Trevor restrained the badger and then cleaned some of the nasty territorial bite wounds. These were some of the worse badger bite wounds we have ever come across. They always look really bad, but badger being so thick skinned generally cope with these injuries really well. Being so severe we are monitoring this badger very closely. Thank you to Henley House Vets in Uckfield for all their help with surgically cleaning up the wounds which took them a lot long then they were expecting. Rescuer Chris also dealt with another badger in Lewes Road but sadly this one passed away on his arrival. Thank you to all the other drivers for slowing down while he was being worked on and thank you to the caller for stopping and giving us a chance to try and help.Its amazing what a change in management can do to turn our charity shop around. We’re getting so many positive comments and feedback. Loads of work and effort being put into new items going into the shop, better organisation, up-cycling, arts and crafts. Amazing. If you haven’t been, please do pay them a visit and say hello to Faye Dabup our new shop manager at 192 Terminus Road, Eastbourne on the pedestrian section almost opposite TJ Hughes Kathy’s baby dove which was hatching from an egg and picked up by a cat mentioned in last week’s column is doing well. Still, only a week old but eyes are open and “Emu” as he has now been called, is so much bigger and stronger. Not out of the woods yet, but Kathy is doing an amazing job feeding and keeping him going. Every day we notice differences in him and his development. We had a vixen admitted from Freeman Avenue in Eastbourne but found lactating. She may have cubs in the area and we have appealed on social media for residents to keep eyes and ears open for possible orphaned cubs and to call our rescue line if concerned. Sadly the vixen was in a poor condition and jaundice had set in. We are not convinced the cubs have survived with her being so ill sadly. As for the cause of her illness, it is not clear but we can’t rule out infection or poisoning. We have had two swans last week. The first poorly swan was rescued by chance when rescuer Katie was at Princes Park in Eastbourne. She spotted that it had a wound on its face so contacted Chris at the centre for some advice and they both agreed it needed to come in. Looking at the wound it was quite close to the eye so the team spoke to Mel at the Swan Sanctuary in Shepperton. After looking at the photos she agreed to take the swan on and we hope it will not be too long before she returns. The second swan was rescued last Tuesday morning after crash landing on Royal Parade Eastbourne. A number of motorists called as well as Sussex Police who were on site too. Rescuer Chris was able to catch the swan which was admitted due to a wound on its beak and wing. Luckily the wounds turned out to be fairly minor so was released later in the week.