Dale Stemmer, Senior Station Officer at Bendigo Fire Brigade knows how distressing pet rescues can be for owners.
“Our pets are an important part of our and their lives are just as important.”
Dale said the aerial appliance at Bendigo has been used on a number of occasions to attend animal rescues.
There was one in particular that ruffled the feathers of the owner of a Blue Macaw named Charlie.
Peter Mountford, Leading Firefighter at Bendigo was one of five members who attended the rescue.
“We were called by Wildlife Rescue in Bendigo who assisted us in retrieving the bird.”
“The owner was pretty distressed; the bird belonged to her late husband and was worth upward of $5,000.”
“It was a delicate operation as we had to not frighten him before we could catch him.”
“He was about eight to ten meters up and we were lucky it was on acreage as we needed space to manoeuvre ladder platform in to retrieve him.”
“We all went around a couple of weeks later to do a follow-up visit and Charlie was doing well – he even got a spot in the local paper,” said Peter.
Dale said one he won’t forget was the very dramatic rescue of a possum that was actually just playing possum when it was identified by a member of the public as being “stuck” in a tree.
“We had to block off three lanes of traffic. The caller said the animal looked distressed, when we had arrived the possum was fast asleep, we attempted the rescue but the possum had other ideas and jumped to a neighbouring tree.”
It’s important if you’re the owner of a pet, to consider their safety when you’re planning and preparing for an emergency, especially with the 2017 fire season upon us.
Author: CFA News