When Mollie the horse got stuck inside a hay feeder at Beveridge, north of Melbourne, in May, owner Anne Greenwood knew exactly who to call for help.<\/p>\n
But not many people know that two Country Fire Authority (CFA) specialised large animal rescue units operate in Victoria.<\/p>\n
And their services are in demand.<\/p>\n
When Ms Greenwood called trained volunteers with the Arthur’s Creek Strathewen brigade, they turned up quickly and winched a gap in the hay feeder to safely coax her horse out.<\/p>\n
“She wasn’t injured at all, but if I had tried to get her out, one, the horse is going to get injured, and two, I could get injured,” Ms Greenwood said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mollie stayed calm throughout the rescue without sedation. (Supplied: Anne Greenwood)<\/p>\n
The brigades’ rescues have involved all sorts of larger animals including alpacas, horses and cows.<\/p>\n
“The problem is not a lot of people know about it,” she said.<\/p>\n
Anne Greenwood works with animals large and small. (Supplied: Anne Greenwood)<\/p>\n
A ‘very big struggle’<\/p>\n
Macclesfield CFA is the other brigade in Victoria specialising in large animal rescues, sometimes travelling up to three hours to attend call-outs.<\/p>\n
“Plenty of farmers will say, ‘Oh, I’ll just put a chain on it and drag it out,'” Captain Sharon Merritt said.<\/p>\n
“That will get them out but that can often do a lot of damage to the animal in the process.<\/p>\n
“If animals stay down too long \u2026 that can cause [health] issues that can make them unviable.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sharon Merritt says both CFA brigades offering large animal rescue are located in areas with large horse populations. (Supplied: Macclesfield CFA)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One of two handmade horse dummies used by Macclesfield CFA, which is fundraising for a professional model. (Supplied: Macclesfield CFA)<\/p>\n
Arthur’s Creek and Strathewen CFA volunteer Sue Leslie said it was difficult to get the service up and running.<\/p>\n
“It was a very big struggle with CFA because core business is fighting fires and they did not want to be part of a large animal rescue unit,” Ms Leslie said.<\/p>\n
She said her brigade had fundraised more than $20,000 worth of equipment, and last year were called out to more large animal rescues than fires.<\/p>\n
“We have to pay for everything ourselves. They [CFA] won’t give us one cent of money.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sue Leslie is also an equestrian coach, but says her large animal rescue training has taught her a lot about horses. (Supplied: Sue Leslie)<\/p>\n
A Victorian government spokesperson said emergency services chose where to direct their annual budgets.<\/p>\n
“We have delivered record funding in recent years for our fire services … this includes a range of services for rescuing large animals, and we thank volunteers for their work in this area,” the spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
A CFA spokesperson said the organisation was proud of its large animal rescue units.<\/p>\n
“We support those brigades that provide the service through the use of equipment and appliances, and where possible, have contributed funding within CFA’s available budget,” the CFA spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the CFA has not blocked or discouraged any brigade from establishing a large animal rescue unit, but it was “not looking to expand these services at this time”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Volunteers pitch in at all hours, including last week to rescue cow Dora from a dam. (Supplied: Macclesfield CFA)<\/p>\n
An inconsistent approach<\/p>\n
Australia has a patchwork of emergency service capabilities that differ from state to state.<\/p>\n
In Victoria, the State Emergency Service (SES) does not specialise in large animal rescue, but in New South Wales, 24 SES units offer large animal rescue with about 500 members trained.<\/p>\n
Fire Rescue NSW has four brigades with the capability.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dora with one of her rescuers, Alex Ellingworth. (Supplied: Macclesfield CFA)<\/p>\n
In South Australia, all districts have large animal rescue capability and access to 23 specialised rescue kits located across the state.<\/p>\n
In Queensland, only one fire brigade has specialised large animal rescue capability and the SES has none.<\/p>\n
Building capability<\/p>\n
Both large animal rescue units in Victoria have worked with trainers from the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Both brigades have also partnered with organisations to develop national accreditation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This horse was rescued from an up-ended float after a car accident in 2021. (Supplied: Macclesfield CFA)<\/p>\n
The Australian Horse Industry Council is developing a rescue training program for emergency services and interest groups, and Melbourne-based company Emtrain Fire and Community Safety launched its own last year.<\/p>\n
Company director Rod Stebbing said the industry was “in its infancy”.<\/p>\n
“There needs really to be one [rescue unit] in each region or district.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mollie the horse got stuck inside a hay feeder at Beveridge, north of Melbourne, in May, owner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23792,64,63,99,58549,58551,17724,58550,16469,58548,15158,18570],"class_list":["post-76029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-animal-welfare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-cfa","tag-cows","tag-emergency-services","tag-fire-brigade","tag-horses","tag-large-animal-rescue","tag-livestock","tag-volunteers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}