Galway & Claddagh Swan Rescue

The swan rescue has been around for about a decade now. I believe it started when there was an oil spill in the harbour in Galway and a group of concerned citizens pooled together and recruited volunteers to come down to the docks and catch and clean the affected birds in a big shed on a very cold and snowy winter's night!

I was one of those volunteers.
Rubber gloves and Fairly liquid in hand, we got to work!
It was such a transformation from the dirty, black, weak, sad looking creatures to the bright-eyed, energetic, hopeful looking swans, preening and stretching their wings. Not one of them was aggressive towards the people cleaning them. Probably a combination of too weak to fight and maybe a small bit of realisation that we were no threat.
Being a 15 year old animal-crazy girl, I fell in love my swan a little bit and named her 'Misneach', which means courage as Gaeilge. I'm pretty sure I remember hugging her too...

Swans are apparently still protected in Ireland, and in Claddagh we have such a concentrated population.
But there was nothing in place to facilitate their protection.
The Swan Rescue started out as a small group of people dedicating their spare time, their own money and even their homes and back gardens to taking in injured birds and hand-rearing orphaned and abandoned cygnets.
They eventually set up as a proper charitable organisation, educated themselves on wildlife rehabilitation and got licensed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Back in 2010 the City Council gave them a little patch of land, with a container in it, in one of the parks on the outskirts of the city. Then in early 2011 they were given planning permission to build a small aviary onto the side of the container. And viola! A sanctuary.
Babies that have to be hand-reared and any other birds that require 24 hour supervision are still kept in members' homes until they are ready to be kept at the sanctuary, which is tended to once or twice a day.

They are a very busy organisation in the spring and summer and they are on hand 24 hours a day, 365 days a year on their helpline to give advice or to take in a rescue case.

The new Twitter page
The Facebook page
Mary's Blog - A great resource for information on swans, ducks, seagulls and how to care for them. Also, all you need to know about the organisation, including registered charity number.

For info on the Claddagh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claddagh
http://ilovegalway.com/claddagh.html

Please consider making a donation:
(Registered charity no: 14904)