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Published May 10, 2026 • Last updated 7 hours ago • 3 minute read
Pauline Forrester, a volunteer visiting from Australia, holds a squirrel being cared for at Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation and Education Centre near Oil Springs. Photo by Paul Morden /The ObserverArticle content
Pauline Forrester volunteers “pretty much everywhere,” and recently checked an animal rescue in rural Lambton County off the list.
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The 71-year-old resident of Sydney, Australia is finishing a four-week stay at Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation and Education Centre near Oil Springs where she helped care for orphaned raccoons and squirrels.
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Now retired from “number crunching” for the life insurance industry, Forrester began volunteering at a Sydney zoo in 2000 and then in 2012 the zoo’s behavioral biologist was set to travel to help out a chimpanzee sanctuary in Republic of Congo.
“She was the person I worked for while I was at the zoo and she said to me, ‘You’re not doing anything are you? Want to come?’”
Forrester accepted the offer.
“I discovered it was quite nice to go to other countries and find out how they do things and meet the local animals,” she said. “If you want to travel and see animals, this is the ideal way to do it.”
Pauline Forrester, from Sydney, Australia, has been volunteering during a four-week visit to Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation and Education Centre near Oil Springs. Paul Morden/The Observer Photo by Paul Morden /The Observer
In the years since, she has volunteered at sanctuaries on several continents, and now in Canada.
“Canadian animals are totally different from Australian animals,” Forrester said. “I may have seen them in zoos, but I’ve never worked with them so coming here was part of my education of all animals worldwide.”
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Typically, she volunteers for two or four weeks each trip, preferring the longer stay so she can learn more.
“Every sanctuary does it different,” Forrester said. “Different animals require different things” and rules change from country to country, she said.
“I just set out to do whatever is helpful,” Forrester said.
That has included helping rehabilitate an injured sloth in Costa Rica where she also worked with a blind kinkajou, a nocturnal animal related to raccoons. She also released sea turtles in Indonesia and helped care for injured bears in southeast Asia.
But she also spent two weeks painting fences in Romania because that’s the help that was needed, Forrester said.
She has travelled in Canada previously but said being a volunteer at an animal sanctuary is an entirely different experience than being a tourist.
“If you volunteer . . . you get to be part of it” and get to “know and understand the local area,” she said.
“I’m learning a lot about the stubbornness of raccoons,” Forrester said about her time at Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue, which has been spent feeding young raccoons and squirrels.
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“Raccoons cause you as much grief as possible,” while squirrels are happy to be fed, she said. “Give me a choice, I’m taking a squirrel.”
While raccoons and squirrels may be commonplace for Canadians, Forrester said she finds them unique and interesting.
“I’ve been in England where they have squirrels and Asia where they have squirrels, and I’m always fascinated by squirrels because we don’t have any,” she said.
By coincidence, one of the squirrels Forrester has been helping care for at Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue is known as Fozzy, which is what her brother is called.
“I’m telling you, she is amazing,” Peggy Jenkins, founder of Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue, said about Forrester.
The centre hosts a number of volunteer interns through the spring and summer when it’s busy caring for injured and orphaned animals.
Recently, Jenkins made a plea for donations for the coming season to help cover operating costs, including hydro, vaccines and food for animals, and cleaning supplies.
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The centre located south of Oil Springs was launched in 2011 and accepts and treats injured and orphaned wildlife, including raccoons, bats, skunks, foxes, squirrels, groundhogs and turtles.
While licensed by the province, the centre doesn’t receive government funding and relies on donations and volunteers.
“As we move forward, we still have ongoing operating costs, and baby season is here which means a big increase in the care, time, and resources needed for these little ones,” Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue said in a statement. “We truly need your continued support to keep going.”
Jenkins can be reached by email at peggy@heavenswildlife.org.
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