The Beluga Whale Sanctuary & Puffin Rescue Center needs your help!

Towards the end of the summer, from mid-August till the end of September, young puffins are leaving nests and heading towards the sea. Pufflings are guided by light and unfortunately in urban areas birds are often flying towards city lights and are landing on the streets. They are unable to take off again and require help to make their way to the water. Here, in Vestmannaeyjar, its a long tradition for locals to search for lost birds every night, to bring them to the shore the next morning. Luckily, most of the lost pufflings are ready to go the next morning after being found. Some of them require a little bit of care: some are still very downy thus not waterproof, underweight or suffer from injuries. That is where our experts come in to provide the extra care they need to be released into the wild.

We urgently need donations to help purchase some of the following items for our bird hospital;

- food: capelin, smelt, sand eel

- first aid materials: disinfectants, bandages, syringes, needles, gauzes

- supplements: vitamins

- veterinary drugs/supplements: eye drops, emerAid (nutritional supplement for weak birds), pain killers, antibiotics, antifungal drugs, steroids

- cleaning products: disinfectants, soaps, paper towels, cleaning tools: brooms, scrubbs

- housing and cleaning supplies

And much more!

The following list shows how we divide our costs during puffling season:

Food: 2,500 GBP

Supplies and equipment: 1000 GBP

Veterinary and medication: 500 GBP

Staff time for 4 weeks: 2000 GBP

Whats the process we go through with oiled and injured pufflings?

- initial checks, stabilization, recovery and release.

A donation of any size would go such a long way, and help to protect the animals at our Sanctuary.

Thank you so much for your kind support.