AN animal centre housing over 30 species at a school near Kidderminster is appealing for donations as the lockdown starts to put a strain on its finances.
Wolverley Animal Centre, which is based at the CE Secondary School, would normally see visitors coming in for its Meet the Meerkats experiences and annual events, but bookings had to be cancelled when the country went into lockdown at the start of January.
The centre is now in need of funds to pay for supplies and repairs and to make improvements to some of its enclosures.
Centre manager Lucy Cull said: "We work a lot with the school to provide all the basic care for the animals, so the animals will always be safe, but if we want to do any extra work or make improvements, we have to find the funding ourselves, which at the moment we don't have because of the lockdown.
"We would normally be doing our animal encounters and holiday club and other events which normally keep us ticking over, but right now we have no funds coming in at all.
"We’re in the process of building a new African house, which is basically an extension to our meerkat enclosure to make it better and warmer as our meerkats are a bit elderly now.
"The other side of the same house will house our tortoise, so that's the main project we're working towards but we need funds to be able to finish it.
"We've also got a maintenance list and a fence that needs fixing."
Wolverley Animal Centre opened in 2014 with just one hamster and a bearded dragon, and now cares for 80 "pre-loved" animals which have either been rescued or rehomed, including meerkats, sheep, goats, chickens, reptiles, tarantulas, frogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas and sugar gliders.
The centre has strong links with local animal colleges and offers courses as well as placements for people with special educational needs.
It has an Amazon wish list for items the centre needs which readers can view by clicking here, or people can make a donation via the school's Parent Pay page here.
Money raised will go towards improvements and maintenance of the centre's animal accommodation, hay and straw costs, vet bills, fruit and vegetables which cost £20 a week, animal feed and medication.
Donated items such as food can also be dropped off at the Wolverley Secondary School bus bay donation point.
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