The Scottish SPCA rescues and rehomes vulnerable animals across Scotland. Gayle spends the day shadowing an animal rescue officer.
Saving badgers, cats, foxes, dogs, snakes, bats and birds in distress is all in a day’s work for Ben Soutar.
As an animal rescue officer for the Scottish SPCA, he travels the length and breadth of Tayside responding to animal-related emergencies phoned in by members of the public.
When we meet up, Ben is about to start a shift covering Dundee and Angus, although, as I’ll discover, he’ll travel a lot further than that.
First up, we check in on a wood pigeon in Broughty Ferry, which a woman suspects has been attacked by a cat.
She’s left it under a laundry basket in her garden and Ben checks the bird over, determining that it just seems stunned as it has no visible injuries.
He puts it into a box for now – he’ll drop it off at the national wildlife rescue centre in Fishcross, Clackmannanshire, later.
Driving towards Montrose, where a man has rung in about a distressed goose in the garden, Ben tells me he dealt with a Royal Python found slithering along a path in the tiny Angus village of St Vigeans the previous day.
“I can only assume it was abandoned,” he says. “It wasn’t shedding its skin and was very poorly hydrated. It’s being looked after by staff at our Petterden centre.”
Other memorable rescues include a buzzard clipped by a train, a badger stuck in a council building, a cat with a corroded jaw, a swan which smacked him on the back of his knee.
There’s also been the odd deadly spider, brought in on bunches of bananas from abroad, and he’s had to put down numerous deer hit by cars.
Arriving in Montrose, we find the goose huddled in a scrubby bush. It can’t fly so Ben flips a net over it in one swift movement.
On examination, he finds blood on its right wing and reckons it’s hit a power line.
It’s hissing because it feels threatened and is quite skinny so Ben puts it into a box, and into the van.
The next job is in Carnoustie, where three calls have come in about an injured seagull.
We find the youngster flapping around with a broken leg. Its parents are crying out for it, and Ben warns me to “watch my head” as he approaches.
Surprisingly, it flies off, and disappears over the rooftops. “Not much we can do about that,” quips Ben.
“You see plenty of birds with one leg, so if this seagull can fly, then so be it.”
There’s no time for a break so we motor on to Milnathort, where there’s a report of a rabbit with myxomatosis.
It’s heartbreaking to see the wee thing, its eyes swollen and barely moving.
It’s thought rabbits die within a few weeks of contracting the disease so the kindest thing is to put it down, and Ben discreetly administers a fatal drug.
After he’s handed over his collection of walking wounded to wildlife centre staff in Fishcross, we head back to Dundee, where two calls have come in about stray cats, one of which was contained in a glasshouse until it started battering itself against the glass and “going mental”.
Ben – a former animal control officer with Dundee City Council – has been in the role for six years and hopes to one day become an inspector.
It goes without saying that he’s an animal lover, and he has a wonderful way with birds and beasts of all species.
A member of his school’s biodiversity club, he learned to handle birds from a young age, volunteering at the PDSA and then studying animal care at Angus College.
He also worked at Brown Street Kennels in Dundee where he took home two rescue dogs as pets, a rottweiler and a staffie-cross.
“Whether a crow or a cat, everything is treated with the same respect,” he says.
“Sadly, we can’t save every animal and often the kindest thing for them is to be put to sleep due to their suffering.
“Initially I found that hard, but you do get hardened to it; you have to!”
It can be a lonely job, with Ben travelling solo in his van all day.
“It’s nice to have colleagues at the end of the line and I was training up a new start the other day, which made a change,” he says.
There are quite a few perils that come with doing the job and some of the things Ben witnesses are horrific.
“A fox had been hit by a car and had died when I got there yesterday,” he tells me.
“What was most distressing was that a group of kids had spat on it and laid sticks on it that spelled RIP.”
Not everyone offers Ben a warm welcome and he’s been on the receiving end of abuse many times.
“I’ve met a few violent and aggressive folk,” he muses.
I head off at 4.30pm, but Ben’s day isn’t finished – he has to lay a trap for a feral cat and check on another rabbit.
We’ve clocked up 220 miles and it’s not unusual for him to pass the 1,000 mile in a week, especially if he’s called to far flung location like Tyndrum or Crianlarich.
It’s a job that requires 110% commitment, passion and dedication to the cause of saving animals and I take my hat off to Ben: it’s not a job I’d be able to do.
“I love animals and I love the variety of the job,” he says.
“I’ve no idea where I’m going next or what I’m going to find. But at the end of the day, it’s really rewarding knowing I’ve done my best to rescue an animal. That’s what drives me.”
info
The Scottish SPCA receives no government or lottery funding which means they rely on the public to be able to continue rescuing and rehoming animals in desperate need.
For more information or to make a donation, see www.scottishspca.org
