Animal Rescue with Marion Garnett
Dedicated animal expert Marion Garnett, founder of the Ealing Animal Charities Fair, continues her column
WE’Re all missing things because of the lockdown. Some essential, others more peripheral. One thing I’m missing is my visit to the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographic exhibition, which I usually make in April.
With the Museum being closed, I decided to see as many of the photographs as I could online. And, of course, the winning photograph by this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Yongqing Bao from China, immediately haunted me.
Entitled The Moment, it shows a Tibetan fox pouncing on a startled marmot in the mountainside.
The marmot had recently come out of hibernation when it was surprised by the fox with three hungry cubs. The picture shows the predator baring her teeth and the terror of the prey with the intensity of life and death written on both their faces.
Seeing the picture, I can’t help but draw a parallel between how, like animals who hibernate, we are currently being encouraged to take cover from the coronavirus at home but, when lockdown is over, we have to emerge without (like the marmot) being engulfed by some unforeseen danger, the moment we set foot outside.
Before we leave the Natural History Museum, let’s take a look at their wildlife garden. Many visitors go to the museum without realising that on the west side, next to the busy Cromwell Road, there is a tranquil wildlife garden. In recognition that wildlife needs all the help it can get, the museum has plans to extend this garden and create a larger, biologically diverse green space in the heart of London as part of an Urban Nature Project – a welcome initiative.
The museum’s message that wildlife is in trouble is echoed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). The results of this year’s RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch have just been published. Although the order of the ten most frequently seen birds in the UK has changed little, with the top four being house sparrow, starling, blue tit and woodpigeon, the numbers of birds spotted have dropped dramatically since the Birdwatch began in 1979. For example, house sparrows are down by 53%, starlings by 80% and robins by 32%. Reasons for this decline are complex but include fewer green spaces, pollution and climate change.
Both the RSPB and the Natural History Museum have ideas of how we can help wildlife by, for example, wildlife-friendly gardening, planting butterfly/bee friendly plants and creating a pond (even if it’s small). See details at rspb.org.uk and nhm.ac.uk