A wildlife rehabilitation charity has faced social media backlash after appealing for £2500 in donations for orthopaedic surgery on a chicken.
The chicken, Dame Maggie, was found on a roadside in South East London after likely being abandoned by her previous owners due to a severely deformed leg.
Greenwich Wildlife Network’s fundraising for the critical operation has currently raised over £2000, yet the charity say that the appeal was met with commenters complaining that a chicken was not worth the high vet bills.
Rae Gellel, founder and director of Greenwich Wildlife Network, said: “The argument people were using was that chickens get eaten every day, so why bother helping this one?
“When an animal is in our care, we’re responsible for its well-being and its veterinary treatment, and we’re not going to discriminate based on species.
“We can’t say only the animals that are cute and fluffy are worth the money.”
Without the surgery, the ‘friendly and loving’ Dame Maggie would likely have to be euthanised due to her low quality of life caused by the deformity, often known as splay leg.
The high-risk procedure, which involves breaking and surgically reforming the leg, will require around three months of post-op care, physiotherapy, and a wheelchair to get Dame Maggie back on her feet.
Gellel said support had been ‘encouraging’ after the initial online backlash, and the charity are preparing to make Maggie as comfortable as possible during the recovery process.
“A bad comment is like a turd in a swimming pool, it kind of paints everything,” she said.
“But on the whole people are lovely and supportive, and I think the people that support our charity are people that share the same ethos as us.”
The Greenwich Wildlife Network rescues upwards of 3000 animals every year and works with around 50 volunteers, regularly raising thousands of pounds for treatment of individual animals.
Abandoned chickens are not uncommon rescues for the charity, along with injured, orphaned, or unwell wildlife.
Gellel says many owners try to avoid paying vet bills and dump the birds in the belief that they will survive in the wild, despite being domesticated animals.
“Dame Maggie has been completely fouled by people, and now were trying to redress the balance and put it right as much as possible,” Gellel added.
Featured image credit: Rae Gellel
Join the discussion