To ensure a streamlined approach to coordinating volunteers to attend to a case and to ensure we all respect each other the following rules apply to #rescues :

• All members may post requesting assistance with an animal.
• Requests for assistance posted using the Rescue Request or Care Request workflow.
• You must have been in direct contact with a member of public (or official) who has witnessed the incident prior to posting the rescue request. This ensures safety for our volunteers so we have a contact to follow up.
• Do not post screenshots from social media as a rescue request.
• If you CANNOT attend, do not accept.
• If you CAN attend, press the ACCEPT button, and you will be contacted by private message with the case details. See below how to REPLY to a message.
• You must NOT accept cases for which you are not trained (e.g. kangaroos, wombats) or which you are not adequately vaccinated (bats).
• If you need more information on a case, or have additional information to share about a case (e.g. you are aware another group has received notification of the case, or you were directly contacted), send it via a private message to the concerned party.
• We take privacy seriously: do not share rescue case information or case statuses with other rescue groups not affiliated with The Wildlife Rescuers. Do not accept cases from Wildlife Rescuers and pass details on to persons un-authorised to receive the information.
• Requests for carers should be in #carers – include as much detail about the animal as possible including sex, weight, age, injuries or reason for needing care.
• Once you have finished with the case, go back to the original thread and add a new reply with the case outcome including: species, sex, age and a brief description of the outcome.

These rules are designed to avoid confusion, reduce “noise” from multiple notifications and ensure everyone has clear visibility of cases needing attention.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT reply to messages from the notification on your lock screen – this creates a new post. Instead open the post properly and then reply. See below.