Grays' self-funded Essex Wildlife Hospital saves 9,000 animals a year

Now Sue and the team care for more than 9,000 wild creatures at the Essex Wildlife Hospital.

The dedicated animal-lover, and founder of the wildlife hospital in Orsett, was well-known where she lived as the person to go to if you had a wild animal which needed help.

“I used to work at the police station control room and I would take the calls about animals in trouble or people would bring animals in and people started to know me as the one to go to,” said Sue.

She grew up on the Orsett Fruit Farm, owned by her parents, and loved animals from an early age.

“My dad brought me a pony when I was younger and I was used to mucking out before school and looking after them, once you have cared for horses everything is smaller and easier to handle,” she explained.

Sue says her parents agreed to let her use some of the outbuildings on the land to care for animals.

“It was supposed to be three months but it became 15 years,” laughed Sue.

“They let me have the field where the horses grazed as an early inheritance, and it took a long time to get planning for the hospital, but we did.”

Animal lover - Sue looking after a baby bear (Image: Sue Schwar)

The hospital as it is now has been running for 14 years, they look after around 9,000 animals per year.

It costs £1,000 a day to run and the hospital is self-funded, relying on donations.

“We are so grateful for the generous donations we receive, we couldn’t do what we do without people’s help,” said Sue.

“We are the only wildlife animal hospital I know of that has its own resident vet,Tom Linsel, who is here 24-seven.The number of animals we look after has doubled in quantity, we are victims of our own success.”

Resident vet - Tom tending to an injured bird (Image: Sue Schwar)

They look after all varieties of birds, badgers, foxes, seals, otters, deer, reptiles, bats, amphibians - basically all wildlife in Essex.

“At the moment we are seeing that the unseasonably hot in November has meant that hibernating animals are in a place where their natural food of insects are not around but it is not cold enough for their bodies to go into hibernation,” said Sue

Which of the animals does Sue look forward to seeing?

“I love all the animals but the otters are lovely and we don’t get many. It’s a privilege to be the fantastic seal pups, when you are near one you are thinking you’d never get the chance to be that close to a creature that lives in the open sea.”

To make a donation visit www.southessexwildlife.org