Foundation Memorial Project : Orphaned Otter Unit

The Pollyanna Pickering Foundation has donated £2465.00 to create a new Otter Cub Unit at their centre on Skye.

For fifteen years Pollyanna ran a rescue and rehabilitation sanctuary for raptors and British Wildlife from her home in Derbyshire, funded entirely through a percentage of sales of her artwork. Eventually when her career began to take her away from home for longer and longer periods of time she had to make the difficult decision to stop this hands on work – but she was determined that her paintings would continue to help wildlife. In 2000 she set up The Pollyanna Pickering Foundation with the aim of raising funds to purchase supplies and build pens and hospital units for centres carrying out similar work in the UK. The very first project funded by the Foundation was the building of artificial badger setts to help with the rehabilitation of orphaned badgers into the wild in Northumberland.

Although the scope of the Foundation widened almost immediately to include worldwide rescue and conservation – by 2001 we were building fences to help create a sanctuary to project rhinos in Kenya – it seemed appropriate that two of the projects selected for the funds donated in Pollyanna’s memory went back to the inspiration behind its creation. Therefore we chose to build two permanent constructions which will help two much loved and threatened British species into the future.

As part of their 25-year anniversary The International Otter Survival Fund lodged an appeal to fully upgrade its rehabilitation facilities. IOSF rehabilitates and releases injured and orphaned otters back to the wild. After 25 years of caring for otters they need to upgrade their facilities to maintain a smooth and favourable transition for otters all the way to release. Otter cubs stay with their mother for 12-15 months and therefore must stay with IOSF for the same amount of time. This allows them to grow into adulthood and offers them the maximum opportunity for survival following release.

The Pollyanna Pickering Foundation has donated £2465.00 to create a new Otter Cub Unit at their centre on Skye.

It is really important that all otters in the care of IOSF have minimal human interaction and maintain their wild nature. Currently, otter cubs go through a three-part process leading to release. At first, they are fed milk at 2-3 hour intervals staying in small, indoor cub units. Following this they are moved to small nursery pens where they can be closely monitored and finally they enter the larger pre-release pens, away from human interference. These new facilities will minimise the human interaction and only involve two moves, meaning the animals have less stress. Once otters have passed the milk feeding stage they will be moved outside to the new facility. They will then move to a nursery pen which is a smaller pen, which opens out to a larger pen. This means that the once otters reach a stage that they are ready for larger facilities all the IOSF need to do is open a door, meaning no stress for both otter and humans. Furthermore, once otters are ready for release, the new pens will offer a smoother and less-stressful process to capture otters.

The unit will feature a memorial plaque in Pollyanna’s name.