Transforming Lives: The Heartwarming Journey of Wild Things Rescue

The UK is full of amazing wildlife, but sometimes it needs a helping hand. That's where Wildlife Rescue charities come in. This is the story of one such charity, Wild Things Rescue, based in Lincolnshire and run by Lucy Steele and an amazing bunch of volunteers.

Wild Things Rescue is a wildlife rehabilitation charity based in Lincolnshire. Currently, we have Lincolnshire’s only wildlife rescue centre, which provides a place not only for animals to recuperate, but for people to volunteer and learn about wildlife. I first started rehabilitating wildlife ten years ago and never imagined Wild Things would develop into what it is today.

I have always had an interest in animals and planned to work with animals in some capacity. When I first started rehabbing, I was working at a vet's. We had quite a few wild animals coming in needing help, so we would provide short-term care, and then I would drive them over to a rescue in Lincoln. During this time, I started to learn more about what it took to care for the animals and started to recognise common issues that they had. So, when the rescue closed, I decided that I would start rehabilitating some of the animals myself.

I'm not sure if I have a favourite rescue story, but the animal that started Wild Things off for me was a hedgehog called Weetabix. I had been rehabbing wildlife for a while when she came in, but she was brought into the vets by a little girl and her father. The little girl was so excited to have been able to help the hedgehog, and it was her enthusiasm and her joy at being able to help that made me want to go from a one-man band into something bigger, where I could teach other people. They had found the little hoglet walking around lost on the road and had taken her home, they'd googled what to do and it'd said to feed her Weetabix, which is how she got her name. Obviously, Weetabix isn't the ideal diet for a hedgehog, but they only had her for a short period of time. Little Weetabix went on to do really well and lived in my garden for years!

I was very lucky to have the support of local rehabbers, who helped me an awful lot! I started rehabilitating hedgehogs, with help from Tracey from Hedgelina’s Home for Hedgehogs and Janet Peto from Hedgehog Welfare.

Before long, my first birds turned up at the vets: two little collared doves affectionately named Foxtrot and Oscar. Rehabilitating birds was new for me and a real learning curve. Thankfully, I was able to contact and take guidance from other rehabbers based in the UK. I will always be grateful for the support I’ve received along the way.

News of my new rehabilitation journey spread quickly, and I became very busy, very quickly! It was a struggle balancing rehab alongside my full-time job and my own life. I would pack up all the animals into their carriers in the morning, drive to work, work and feed animals all day, load all the animals back into the car and go to the gym where I volunteered coaching kickboxing. Often, I wouldn’t get home until 10 pm and would be up cleaning and feeding late into the night. Obviously, this was unsustainable. Luckily, I had lots of people get in touch, saying they wanted to help! So I started to build a fostering network. This allowed us to take in far more animals and ensure that the animals received the best care.

In 2020, we were all flat out, and the way the world worked had changed, so we decided it was time to give running an actual rescue centre a go. I can’t claim I knew exactly what to do, and it has been a real labour of love, but we’re improving year upon year. On average, we admit a thousand animals a year and take thousands of enquiries from members of the public, vets and other organisations. This year alone, we’ve admitted over 500 animals, including mice, hedgehogs, rabbits and barn owls.

Running a rescue is extremely stressful, with funding being a major factor. The cost of living crisis hit us hard, with donations reducing hugely and our costs skyrocketing. We’ve worked hard to try and balance things out and, unfortunately, had to close our doors to admissions multiple times in 2024. We’re hopeful we can stay open more consistently this year.

Wildlife rehabilitation is a real love/hate thing to do. Some days can be really, really sad: seeing animals suffering, being abused by members of the public, and just having no time to even have a piece of toast. Whereas others are great: releasing animals back into their natural habitat, nursing a really unwell animal back to health or having a kind volunteer or member of the public go the extra mile. Ultimately, we do this because we love wildlife, and we know that there are very few places out there able to help now.

You can find out more about the work we do here: www.linktree.com/wildthingsrescue

Or find us on Facebook: Wild Things Rescue

If you have an animal in distress, please call us on 01526 578579. We are open 9 am-6 pm every day except Tuesdays.