Hopes to expand Bardsea Bird Sanctuary to cater to growing demand

Bosses at Bardsea Bird Sanctuary said it was ‘struggling to cope’ with the number of injured birds coming into the facility and was considering taking over a larger space to cater to the growing demand.

Sanctuary bosses have discussed adapting a former dog kennels on Walney into a facility to care for larger gulls.

Elisabeth Ashleigh, of Bardsea Bird Sanctuary, said these gulls needed to be cared for in a ‘safe and secure’ place.

She said: “We are getting more notifications about injured gulls than we can handle because we do not have enough volunteers and are dealing with many other birds.

“Although the Tweet Fleet are experienced with birds, we are after all just unfunded volunteers with other responsibilities although able to deal with smaller species if not too badly injured.

“Larger species need a lot of space we don’t have, and those that are severely injured simply have to see a vet; if we take them in we still have to obtain veterinary treatment.

“There’s a lot of former kennels in Walney which are in disuse.

“We’d like to potentially take over one of these sites and turn it into a space for the gulls to recover before they are released.

“We would like it to be somewhere that people can take injured gulls to because we just don’t have the space anymore.

“On Sunday, we had four calls in Barrow alone about injured gulls - we just can’t cope.

“Despite our constant plea for volunteers, we haven’t been able to attract any new volunteers.

“We’d like a secure area to put injured gulls in as we can only take a few gulls each at the moment. And when we’re looking after them, they got bigger so we need a larger space to put them in before they’re released back into the wild. We’d go down to the place, feed them, water them - they need a lot of love and care.

“People don’t like to handle gulls so it’s up to us to look after them and nurse them back to health in a secure place which is large enough to look after them properly.”