Broke & Leaving

Every year WIRES gets millions of dollars in donations
through on-line campaigns and direct-mail marketing.

To persuade you to donate, WIRES will tell you how much it costs to care for sick and injured Australian wildlife. What they don't tell you is your money doesn't go to help the animals.

When you donate on-line or respond to one of the WIRES begging-letters, 100% of your donation goes to what WIRES calls
"The Administration Office". The Administration Office only passes on 2% to help look after sick and injured Australian animals.

So who does pay for the care of the animals?

Nearly all costs come out of the pocket of the WIRES volunteer. It can cost them thousands of dollars every year!

Equipment, animal food, enclosures, transport... are all the responsibility of the volunteer. To pay the vet bills they must raise funds locally - your donations don't pay for veterinary care either.

On top of that, volunteers are charged for compulsory training supplied by WIRES - it is the only training WIRES will accept. WIRES gives their members no share of the donations and makes a profit out of training them as well!

So when the volunteers saw how much money was being donated to WIRES, yet they were paying so much themsleves, they became angry and disillusioned. When they tried to vote out the management, the management just changed the rules and stayed in power. 

There was only one thing left for volunteers to do: Leave WIRES. 

In 2009 it was reported that WIRES had over 3000 members. In 2011 that had dropped to 1700. That means nearly 50% have walked away, some to join other wildlife rescue groups. They care about our Australian native animals and won't abandon them.

All the complaints to the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Environment Minister have been ignored. The NSW government is happy to see you pay for WIRES to pretend to do the job - that way the Government doesn't have to. The government is planning to make WIRES a statutory authority like the Game Council of NSW and that worries many wildlife carers.

You can help.

Send the NSW Environment Minister the message using our on-line letter - it takes 10 seconds!