RSPCA Friends of West Hatch Newsletter Summer 2018 | issue 14 | Page 8

It’s all about
the Database
by Paul Oaten
When an animal is admitted to the RSPCA
Wildlife Centre at West Hatch details such
as the species, age, reason for admission
and where it was found are all entered into a
database which then generates an admission
number and card. This admission card stays
with the animal for the duration of its
rehabilitation at the centre. Daily comments
are recorded and eventually an end result. In
the best case scenario this will be ‘released’.
The information recorded allows us to
look back at how an animal did during
its rehabilitation. We can modify or alter
how we are caring for an animal, group of
animals or a particular species by analysing
this information and we can manipulate the
search criteria within the database to run
reports for the information we require.
A simple example may be to look at orphans
of a particular species and compare age at
admission against the end result. This may
highlight that the very young do not do as
well as slightly older animals admitted and
we would therefore look at the possible
reasons for this and try to find new ways to
improve the survival of these very young
animals. Without a larger set of data to
analyse and get a general overview it is
difficult to make protocol amendments.
This is where the information collected
on the database becomes very useful in
shaping and improving our methods of
care and rehabilitation.
Put a ring on it!
At the RSPCA wildlife centres we use many
different ways to follow the success of the
animals we release after rehabilitation.
These range from radio tracking, identi-
chipping and tattooing to bird ringing.
We have been putting BTO (British Trust
for Ornithology) rings on birds prior to
release for over 25 years and have ringed
a large number of birds of varying species
d