Bonorong riding on funds for charity event to help with increased rescues

A Tasmanian animal sanctuary overwhelmed with wildlife rescues is hoping the return of one of it’s ‘wild’ fundraising events will keep the centre running. How to get involved.

Greg Irons on the bicycle for Wild Ride charity ride at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. Picture: Caroline Tan

With Bonorong Animal Sanctuary seeing an extra 1000 to 2000 animals in its centre each year, it hopes that the return of its charity ride will bring in much-needed funds for the centre currently overwhelmed with rescues.

The Wild Ride charity ride is back for its second year beginning in March, which invites Tasmanian families, businesses and groups to pick a creative ride for a time in the month of March and fundraise for their journey.

Bonorong director Greg Irons said on Wednesday that he planned to top his own 200km journey during March last year on a “blinged up” trike.

Greg Irons with Bingo the Wombat and Steph Parker on the bicycle for Wild Ride charity ride at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. Picture: Caroline Tan

“Wild Ride raised $30,000 in its first year, that’s a lot of animals that can be helped,” he said.

“Our hope this year is around growing that profile and making sure people understand the concept.

“This is designed to be all-inclusive, so you can choose your wild ride – it can be something that’s endurance, it can be something silly, like one guy was looking at riding a pogo stick around his workplace for a day.

“For me personally, I’ll be doing four rides in the local community, and I’ll head to a place each time and do something for wildlife. I’ll remove road kill along the way and check pouches while planting trees or putting up nesting boxes.”

Mr Irons hopes more people will sign up this year, with funds going directly to keeping the Sanctuary running.

“What needs more funding is our primary care services, which is everything from coordinating wildlife rescue through to treating in the hospital through to the team that coordinates the rehabilitation and gets animals back to the wild,” he said.

“That means we need a lot more funding to get through and unfortunately, those numbers of animals are growing every single year, so the fundraiser this year and moving forward will be crucial for us to keep helping wildlife in need.”

To sign up for the Wild Ride event, head to www.wildride.org.au

Originally published as Bonorong riding on funds for charity event to help with increased rescues