Changing lives through nature

Did you know we treat around 10,000 wild animals at our National Wildlife Rescue Centre every year? All the animals we rehabilitate at the centre are born to be wild, so we limit human interaction and the centre is not open to the public.

However, we do want to showcase our brilliant wildlife in other ways and hope to open an amazing community education hub soon.

Wildlife is in need of rescue for a number of reasons. They can be injured accidentally or deliberately or orphaned young and often the public may not know the best way to help these animals.

Education can support increased knowledge and reduce unintentional cruelty, intentional cruelty can also be prevented through increasing knowledge and tackling the link between animal cruelty and violence towards others.

It’s good for human wellbeing to spend time in the natural world. We recognise the benefit of encouraging children to connect with nature and the positive impact exposure to outdoor environments can have on the mental health of young people, their families and communities as it provides opportunities to reconnect and can truly change lives.

Our dream is to enrich lives of animals and people through offering a unique community education hub that will be a place where children feel inspired to make a difference, support those affected by trauma and help families to re-connect and have fun. Here’s our vision:

  • We want to restore the Devon Colliery Beam Engine House at the Scottish SPCA’s national wildlife rescue centre in Clackmannanshire to its natural beauty and open it up as a state of the art education hub.
  • We want it to be a fun, engaging and informative attraction for the general public,
  • We want to offer specialist trauma support for those children who need it whilst protecting the overall heritage of the site.
  • Inside there will be interactive elements including video footage of casualties that are being rehabilitated at the wildlife rescue centre, interactive touch screens, digital games, information boards and physical props.
  • Phase two of the project would involve building an eco-friendly classroom on adjacent land to facilitate larger groups so they too can participate in activities such as mini-beast identification, analysis of owl pellets and building bird and bat boxes.
  • We also want to enhance a nearby nature trail by installing cameras so we can observe natures wildlife in the area (birds, bats, hedgehogs, badgers and so much more). Having access to this nature trail would be part of the activities being run from the centre and will help groups to truly connect with nature. 

This site would serve as a place to educate anyone of any age on various aspects of Scottish wildlife, connect them with the nature and increase their knowledge of our work in rescuing and rehabilitating Scottish wildlife. The hub would also inspire people to be responsible animal citizens, and link to the engineering and historical aspects of the building itself. The Devon Colliery Beam Engine House was the largest and longest lasting colliery in Clackmannanshire, it is one of the few surviving beam engines in Scotland and serves as a monument to the industrial history of Clackmannan.

We need help to make this dream come true. Whether you are a company which could offer vital skills towards building renovation, a tech firm with the capability to support some of the equipment we need, or a business interested in funding the project, this is a scheme worth getting behind.

Get in touch to support our vision