Thanks to Gill for sending me this information a couple weeks ago.
We were walking on the local Levada this afternoon and found an injured Heron, which was unable to use its legs, though had strong wings and very strong beak which cut my head! We had no idea how to get help for it and called at vets office,they do not deal with wild birds, and indeed the only people who do are The Institute of Forest and Nature Conservation (IFCN), but they do not open on weekends, feeling totally helpless we scooped the bird up and took it home and after a few phone calls to friends we discovered there is indeed a 24 hr number to call, and the National Guard (SEPNA) will collect injured birds out of office hours, and indeed the poor thing was collected very promptly and they then transport it to the wild bird sanctuary.
IFCN : 961 957 545
SEPNA : 291 214 460
Can you put it on your blog with the two phone numbers for anyone who finds an injured animal it took us 2 hours to find out who to contact, once they were contacted it took just 45 minutes for them to arrive and take it to safety…
We were walking the levada between Lombadinha and Amparo, and it was laying in long grass obviously injured, it tried to fly and landed in the road and could not stand up so I couldn’t leave it in the road scooped it up, took it back to our car then home, and finally contacted GNR who were fantastic and speedy at arriving to help it….
The bird had a broken leg, and has made a good recovery. This was printed in the Diario Noticias.
A bird was collected last Sunday by the Territorial Command of Madeira, through the Service of Protection of Nature and Environment (SEPNA), in Ponta do Pargo.
The animal was injured in a foot and was then delivered to the Natural Park of Madeira to provide care and recovery, informed the GNR on its official website.