Yorkshire Swan Rescue Hospital

THE HOSPITAL

The Yorkshire Swan Rescue Hospital is a registered charity (Charity Number 1113771) operated exclusively by dedicated volunteer workers and veterinary surgeons to the rescue, care, treatment and rehabilitation of injured swans and wild animals.

The Charity and Hospital was founded by Dan Sidley and Joe Dziurzynski some years ago. After becoming aware of the constant threat by humans to wildlife and swans in particular, they gave up their home to respond to the natural instinct to 'do something' to help injured swans and wildlife. Never did they realise the scale which the charity would operate, and the huge workload envolved. At the time of the charities' registration, the pair were in their early 20's, and subsequently are the youngest people in the UK to register a charity. For more information on the founders and other volunteers at the Hospital, visit 'The People' page of this website.

By no means choice, the charity is the largest and busiest treatment centre for injured swans in Northern England, and treats the second largest number of injured swans in the UK and world-wide. During 2007, the centre will have treated approximately 3,000 wild animals, with a sole aim of returning every animal successfully treated back into it's rightful place in the wild.

With thanks to the generosity and help of a local landownder, the Yorkshire Swan Rescue Hospital is set in the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at Brandsby in the Vale of York. Yorkshire Swan Rescue Hospital is a haven for sick and injured swans and wild animals, a place which has been created for the animals' needs and where the surroundings are as close as possible to those a wild animal would find itself in the wild. Here, the injured swans and wild animals are given time to recouperate and respond to their treatments, until they are fit and strong enough to be re-released back into the wild.

The charity is operational 24 hours a day, and is proud of it's established reputation. The dedicated facilities include a Hospital ward, Examination tables, Intensive care units, an Isolation unit, a washing and cleaning room for polluted and oiled swans, outside rehabilitation enclosures, nursing ponds and a two acre spring-fed rehabilitation lake. Our experienced volunteer workers are on hand 24 Hours a day, providing a vital emergency rescue service with first aid recovery, blood tests, treatments and administrating life saving drugs to wildlife casualties. For more complex injuries, with the support of our Internationally renowned and respected Veterinary Surgeons from the International Zoo Veterinary Group, we are able to provide a fully equipped operating room and X-ray facilities.

We are called upon regularly by many organisations and charities, such at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), local Police, the National Swan Sanctuary in London, the Highways Agency, local Councils, Park Wardens, Network Rail, Countryside Rangers, electricity companies, British Waterways, the Environment Agency and Government Department DEFRA. All of these organisations rely heavily on our voluntary work and are unable to contribute towards our charity's expenses. We respond also of course to members of the public who come across injured swans, and without their generosity and support financially, we would not be able to continue our valuable work. The Yorkshire Swan Rescue Hospital does not receive Government funding, and relies on donations, contributions and legacies to continue it's valued voluntary work from kind and generous members of the public, companies and charitable trusts.

Although we are known as Yorkshire Swan Rescue Hospital, our work is by no means restricted to the counties of Yorkshire. Our team of volunteers give their time selflessly to help birds as far away as Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Teeside, Tyne & Wear, Nottinghamshire, County Durham, East Midlands, Lancashire and Cheshire. Our volunteers can cover up to an astonishing 3000 miles every single week to collect and release injured swans.

We are supported by an excellent team of veterinarians, who are internationally known for their work with endangered wildlife and exotic species, and who assist us in treating these birds by performing life saving surgery, which often takes place late at night. Our vets charge their clients hundreds of pounds per hour for their time, but for working on our swans they waiver the costs for their knowledge and time and charge us only cost prices for medications, x-rays, blood tests and treatments, allowing our charity to continue remaining totally non-profit and completely voluntary.

Our work not only involves the rescue and rehabilitation of injured swans. We regularly give talks to school children, community meetings and guided tours around our hospital unit, with the aim to educate members of the public to prevent any unnecessary further suffering of wildlife and the habitat in which we live. We aim to educate particularly about the dangers of discarded fishing line and dumping unwanted pollutants such as oil and diesel into waters. We also assist companies in charge of electricity pylons and cables to erect reflective diverters on to the lines where there are regular flight paths of waterfowl in order to avoid collision with cables, which otherwise injures the birds and results in many people stranded without power for hours. We also assist local authorities where there are problems with habitat destruction on public lakes and ponds, and provide our services and knowledge on waterfowl and wildlife in order to benefit both people and our wildlife.