THE FLIGHT CENTRE FOUNDATION HAS ACCELERATED ITS PARTNERSHIP WITH AUSTRALIAN WILDLIFE RESCUE ORGANISATION, WIRES, UNVEILING A NEW WILDLIFE AMBULANCE ON WORLD WILDLIFE DAY.
The new ambulance takes the WIRES emergency response fleet to a total of eight dedicated wildlife ambulances across New South Wales, South-East Queensland and Tasmania.
Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) head of people and culture, Allisa O’Connell, said seeing the tangible impact of the foundation’s funds encourages FCTG’s people to keep giving.
“The Flight Centre Foundation is incredibly excited to be partnering with WIRES and is thrilled to have been able to assist with the purchase of its eighth wildlife ambulance, especially on world wildlife day,” O’Connell said.
“Many of our customers travel across the country to see Australia’s unique wildlife, and like them, we believe it is truly something worth protecting.
“Our people understand the urgent need to start living with reciprocity with our planet, ensuring greater care over the land and seas on which we work, live and travel.
“We look forward to continuing our partnership with WIRES and we’re committed to assisting the organisation in their mission to actively rehabilitate and preserve Australian wildlife, while inspiring others to do the same,” she said.
Over 130,000 orphaned, sick, injured, or displaced native animals were reported to WIRES in 2022 and the WIRES emergency response team were out on the road attending to the most critical of these rescues.
“WIRES is committed to expanding our Emergency Response Team, so we have the capacity to respond to the increasing and ongoing demand for wildlife rescue assistance across Australia,” emergency response manager, WIRES, Lucy Clark, said.
“Thanks to Flight Centre Foundation’s support, we now have an additional and much needed Wildlife Ambulance to add to our fleet, which will allow us to help more animals in need and improve outcomes for our native wildlife.
“This fully equipped ambulance will also allow us to effectively respond to the ever-increasing natural disasters that we are facing and play an integral role in assisting wildlife that are impacted by these emergency events,” she said.
Last year WIRES ambulances covered 182,000 km’s on their rescue missions.