Prickly customers help shop launch backing for wildlife charity

A Shrewsbury Shopping Centre store has welcomed prickly visitors to launch their support of a local animal charity.

The Body Shop in the town’s busy Darwin Shopping Centre has pledged to back the Much Wenlock-based Cuan Wildlife Rescue after being inspired to help nature by a tragic incident last year.

Store assistant manager Anna Bradbury-Walker decided to help after seeing media coverage of a swan which lose both her mate and two of her chicks by supporting the rescue group who came to the bird’s aid.

Anna, 29, said: “I live up by Battlefield where these swans live and the male and female come back every year.

“Everyone knows them and they are like local legends. They come up to the road where the burger van is and he feeds them and it’s lovely to see them every year.

“Last year the male got attacked by a dog. It was awful and the Cuan Wildlife Rescue tried to fix him up and get him better but he died leaving the female on the eggs in the nest.”

Animal-lover Anna and her partner, who have two dogs, three cockatiels, two parrots, a canary and two rabbits themselves, were devastated and soon started caring for the bereaved swan.

“We started going up every day because she wouldn’t leave the nest,” Anna explained. “The Cuan people gave us food that we took to her and she had three chicks.”

The tragic tale took a further twist when shortly after hatching two of the three cygnets were killed by what Anna describes as ‘horrible little boys’.

She said: “It was just awful. It seemed like one tragedy after another and I was so sad. Local people were absolutely in uproar and I think the police are still investigating. 

“Luckily her last chick is still with her and they are inseparable. I think they kept each other going really.

“So when the Cuan Wildlife Rescue came in and asked if we would consider having a collection tin in store I was absolutely delighted to do whatever we could.”

The Darwin Centre shop is also hoping to organise a full day of fundraising for the charity soon and Anna said: “We’re running up to Christmas now so it will probably be in the new year but we’d like to do something more.

“We’re all absolutely animal mad in store and we did something for the Dog’s Trust last year so next time it will be for Cuan.”

The name of the wildlife charity comes from the area where founders Megan and John Morris-Jones lived before they arrived in Shropshire from the remote Scottish isle of Luing in the 1980s.

The charity is now run by their daughter Anna Nicholas and her husband Sean and helps approximately 2,000 sick and injured creatures annually across the county at a cost of £80,000 a year.

Much of the work involves veterinary care as well as rehabilitation and conservation, and at this time of year hedgehogs are particularly in need which is why they came along to the Body Shop this week.

Anna said: “Hedgehogs are having a hard time at the moment and research has shown a massive decline in the British population.

“A lot of new homes and developments don’t allow them to travel around at night as they need to in order to find enough food, and at the moment they need to eat as much as possible before hibernating.

“The second litters are born in September, just as it starts to get colder, and the hoglets, like these ones, can end up weak and vulnerable.”

The Body Shop team are expecting their customers to get behind the charity too, especially as hedgehogs have been the subject of much media focus recently.

With a sharp decline in their numbers, the prickly pest controllers – much loved by gardeners for their slug eating abilities – are in real danger.

Figures show that the national population of the spiny species has plummeted from around 36 million in the 1950s to less than one million today.

It costs the Cuan Wildlife Rescue £50 to rear an orphaned hedgehog and they welcome any contributions to their funds as well as gifts of the food necessary to help.

Anna said: “We’re delighted that the Body Shop are going to be collecting for us. It’s brilliant as we rely entirely on fundraising to support our work.

“Every penny raised will help us to be able to carry on what we do.”

Kevin Lockwood, Manager of the Darwin, Pride Hill and Riverside Shopping Centres, said: “The Body Shop ethos is very green and the staff there are very ecologically minded too and this is a very worthwhile local wildlife charity.

“They do tremendous work and I’m sure they will get plenty of support from generous customers in Shrewsbury.”

For more details on how to contribute or buy food for the charity, visit the website at www.cuanwildliferescue.org.uk or add your donation to the tin in the Body Shop at the Darwin Shopping Centre.