One animal rescue a week for Shropshire firefighters
Shropshire firefighters had to rescue hapless animals from rivers, trees and other sticky situations on an almost weekly basis last year.
National Fire Chiefs Council guidance says crews must be equipped to deal with incidents involving animals in peril, to prevent members of the public putting their lives at risk in rescue attempts.
Home Office figures show the Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service attended 48 animal assistance callouts in 2018-19.
The rescues were among almost 5,000 carried out across England, with crews attending an average of nearly 100 calls every week.
Livestock rescues made up the majority of animal assistance callouts in Shropshire, with 29 incidents.
This was followed by pets - 14 incidents - with the remainder involving wild animals in need.
While fire and rescue services encourage people concerned about an animal's welfare to contact the RSPCA first, to avoid calling crews out unnecessarily, the animal rescue charity says the assistance of firefighters is a vital help to their officers.
Tricky situations
A spokesman said: "We work closely with fire and rescue services across England and Wales and are incredibly grateful to them for support helping us rescue animals from tricky situations, as well as carrying out their own animal rescues.
"Unfortunately there are many times where it simply isn't safe for us to rescue animals, such as from heights or if specialist equipment and expertise are required, so collaborative working is vital in these situations to save animals.
"In these circumstances, we will sometimes request the help of firefighters but it's up to them if they attend, and emergencies involving people will always take priority."
Altogether, in 2018-19 firefighters from the Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service attended: 14 rescues from heights, nine water or mud rescues, five heavy animals in need of lifting, five creatures retrieved from below ground, one animal trapped or entangled, and 14 uncategorised incidents.
