The Wildheart Animal Sanctuary has reached its fundraising target of £150,000 to build a brand-new habitat for Benji and Balu, two European Brown Bears in need of rescue from Azerbaijan.
Remarkably, this ambitious target was achieved in just five months.
The Sanctuary’s Head of Fundraising, Christine Harty, said:
“We cannot thank our supporters on the Isle of Wight and across the UK enough.
"The outpouring of support we have received since announcing our plans to rescue Benji and Balu in May this year has been overwhelming, and we are grateful to every donor, community fundraiser and corporate partner that helped us reach this milestone”.
The Sanctuary is set to complete the new bear habitat in time for Benji and Balu’s arrival early next year.
They have now cleared the site, constructed two bear caves, and dug streams and ponds.
Next, they will finish building platforms for the bears to climb on and finalising the design of the bear house and the new visitor lookout.
“We're so excited to welcome Benji and Balu to their new home," Christine continues.
"What we have achieved as a community in such a short time is truly remarkable.
"It has been humbling to see people come together to help us rescue these bears from a horrific start to life.”
So, what happens next?
The Sanctuary still has the immense challenge of transporting Benji and Balu across Europe to their new home.
It is believed this will be the first time that bears have been rescued out of Azerbaijan, which means there are huge challenges still to overcome in this project.
There are no labs to perform the required pre-transport health checks, no drugs to inoculate the bears for these checks and no vets qualified to perform them.
All of these things must be flown in from other countries and then samples flown back to the UK for testing.
The Sanctuary will even need to build the crates to transport them in.
Lastly, there is the tremendous challenge of finding a flight.
Originally the Sanctuary had secured a sponsored flight, but they recently received the devastating news this has sadly fallen through, which means the Sanctuary now needs to raise the funds to secure another one.
The fundraising target has had to be extended by £75,000 to cover the transportation costs.
The Sanctuary’s COO, Lawrence Bates, says:
“The news that the sponsored flight had fallen through was crushing for everyone involved as it left a huge whole in our campaign.
"We have no choice but to continue fundraising, as there is no Plan B for these bears. If we don't rescue them, there is nobody else going in to save them, so we simply have to succeed.
"Everyone here at Wildheart is re-doubling their efforts to ensure we get to this new goal as quickly as we can and help bring Benji and Balu to safety.”
People with any connections or contacts that may be able to help transport Benji and Balu to our Sanctuary are asked to email [email protected] to have an initial discussion.
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