Greetings, lovely viewers, and welcome to another fascinating episode of Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today we’ll travel to Somerset in breathtaking South West England, one of the UK’s most beautiful areas, to pay another visit to the Secret World Wildlife Rescue, a magical haven for Britain’s wild animals.

Founded in 1992 by Pauline and Derek Kidner, Secret World rescues, rehabilitates and re-homes sick, injured and orphaned animals. With a team of more than 600 dedicated volunteers and trained animal experts, the group’s facility has grown into the only 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week wildlife rescue center in the region.

Each year, the marvelous group helps over 4,000 of our precious wild animal friends in England alone, including: badgers, otters, foxes, owls, hedgehogs and deer. One of Secret World’s most memorable rescues was at the end of December 2010 when severe freezing conditions caused a group of swans in Central Somerset to starve, with some becoming stuck in ice.

Secret World volunteers saved 21 swans from the extreme conditions and rehabilitated them back to health. Following the successful operation, in addition to a prior donation of £10,000 given when she honored the organization with the Shining World Compassion Award, Supreme Master Ching Hai provided an additional US$10,000 to Secret World in support of its mission.

Secret World has gained national recognition for its work, winning the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC’s) Animal Country Award in 1995, and has also been featured on numerous TV programs in the UK. In 2001 Ms. Kidner was nominated for the BBC Animal Award because of her great contributions to the cause of animal welfare. Now let us meet some of the fine residents of this refuge! Badgers are elusive, nocturnal animals and the world’s fastest diggers.

We’ve got three little cubs that are with us at the moment. And they were the smallest cubs we’d ever actually had. The smallest one was 55 grams when it arrived. One was 72 (grams), and the other one was 76 grams, and that was just under two weeks ago. And they’ve actually quadrupled their weights, which is really fantastic.

These fascinating, furry beings are incredibly strong for their size. An average adult badger weighs around 10 kilograms and has a body length of about 750 millimeters, with males slightly larger than females. Scientists have identified eight species of badgers and placed them into three subfamilies. Badgers have extraordinary senses of hearing and smell and are highly sociable, living with their families in large, underground setts or interlocking tunnels, many of which are centuries old and are passed down from generation.

In the wild, badgers can live for up to 14 years, and interestingly, a badger’s age can be roughly determined by examining the wear on his or her teeth. Friendly badgers have been known to share their dens with other animals such as coyotes and foxes, and in one case, even a human boy. In 1871 a badger family adopted a lost Canadian boy. He stayed in their den and they kindly fed the child and kept him safe until he was found. Each year, Secret World may care for up to 50 baby badgers.

They were found in Wales, and some people went to have a look at their land after some floods and realized that three of the setts had been flooded. And they heard these little cubs crying in a metal barrel. And obviously as tiny as they were, they weren’t going to keep warm for very long. So they decided to take them home and got in touch with us; they were about six hours away but we were able to arrange a relay of drivers.

And they were with us by 1:30 in the morning on Sunday. And they’re at the moment needing to be fed every three hours, although when they first came in, it was just between one and two hours, so, quite a lot of effort when it comes to feeding them.

I know, you’re starving, aren’t you?

Another animal that frequently receives care at the Secret World Wildlife Rescue is the magnificent otter. Otters are semi-aquatic mammals that belong to the Mustelid family. Although they have an almost worldwide distribution, they’re not easily spotted in the wild and are mainly found in areas close to undisturbed rivers, streams and estuaries.

Otters can swim faster than any other four-legged animal at speeds of up to one meter per second. Interestingly, while otters are swimming, they’re able to control their heartbeat to reduce the amount of oxygen they need, and thus can stay underwater for up to four minutes. In muddy riverbeds where visibility is low, otters are able to use their stiff whiskers to feel their way around, and can also focus their eyes in a way that allows them to see clearly underwater.

This little cub’s been with us about a week. She came in where she was found in a garden just underneath some decking. Her eyes have only just opened because she’s only about five weeks old, so still far too young to have to come out of the sett on her own. She would need to be about 12 weeks before she would start moving above ground. And then this little boy only just came in about half an hour ago. He was found curled up on the side of the road. And he’s about seven weeks old, six-seven weeks old. And we obviously think that he's lost mum somehow or other.

Or sometimes when you get heavy rain, the rivers swell up. They will actually sometimes get washed out of holes. Because at the moment they’re far too young to go swimming in water, they would float on the top, just bob up and down, and then the river would carry them further down. So it’s very difficult to find mum. And there may well be more of these. We've sent volunteers out to have a look and see if they can find some more.

During our time with Pauline Kidner she gave us a tour of the Millie Building where young animals come for their last stage of rehabilitation before being released back into their natural habitats.

This is what we call the Millie Building. It was actually named after a little girl called Millie Havercroft, who sadly died in the year 2000. So when we eventually got this pen done, because Secret World was her favorite place, we named the building after Millie. It’s a special building where all our orphaned animals once they’re weaned, they come down here because there's grassed enclosures attached to the pens. And it’s a time for them to revert to being wild, really.

This building it's got a very long corridor and there’s about 14 pens in all; small pens up this end, which allows us to put single animals in. But you’ll find that each of the pens actually can take heat lamps, and they’re all tiled so that if we put wet animals in there that need a lot of water, it’s easy to keep it clean.

And the pens actually have enclosures attached to them, so that when animals are small they go to a pen. And then as they get older, we open a gate and they can come through into glass enclosures. The building was designed with a long corridor so that when we got badgers or foxes or even swans as well, we can walk them up and down here and make sure that their movement is okay prior to being released. So that was the reason for the long corridor.

And you’re seeing this obviously in the winter, so a number of the pens aren’t in use. At the moment this is being used for hedgehogs because we've got absolutely hundreds of hedgehogs here over the winter. So this is a pen that's got hedgehogs in it, but it can be used for squirrels or it can be used for small birds as well.

Hedgehogs are adorable animals with prickly spines covering their bodies except for their face, belly and legs. Per hedgehog, there are up to 7,000 brown or grey spines on the tops of their bodies, and soft, grey fur underneath. They have five toes front and back just like humans and a great sense of hearing.

And this weather, they’re probably hibernating, actually. Let's just have a look and see. Oh, dear, prickly hedgehog, there we go. And we keep track of all where the different hedgehogs have come from, because as much as possible we always put them back to where they come from because it will be an area that they’ll know and they’ll know where to find food and water and where to actually live.

We have got a resident badger on the other side, and she’s been with us for several weeks now. And if we go in, we'll probably be able to see she literally drags all the straw around. But you can see she’s got nice tunnels just to go in. Her food's there. She’s got a sack bag that she can play with if she wants to. And the woodchips in the corner is so they can use it as a dirt corner, really.

And this one down here actually is a special pen that we've got, and this is purely for deer. And we use it because it’s been clad out with rubber matting, so that if we do have a deer that runs into the walls, they’re not going to hurt themselves. We can also adjust the amount of light that we want to put into the pen. If they’re very short, obviously we try and shut out as much light as we can.

And we can also alternate between red and white light, which is obviously a lot more comforting for the deer while they’re here. We get approximately about 50 deer a year coming in. Most of those would be road-traffic accidents.

Bravo, compassionate Pauline Kidner and all the other staff and volunteers of the Secret World Wildlife Rescue for your praiseworthy work helping and safeguarding the lives of Britain’s wild animals.

For more details on Secret World Wildlife Rescue, please visit

Caring viewers, thank you for your wonderful company today on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May our hearts always be blessed with Divine love and noble thoughts.