A Country Diary.
NORTHUMBERLAND: Roe deer are among the most difficult wild creatures for humans to succour and rehabilitate.
Abandoned fawns have been reared on a bottle, only to die within a few months.
So it was interesting to hear this week from Mrs Bolton of Wildlife In Need in the north of our country that she has recently saved the life of a six-month old roe doe fawn.
The little deer was seen staggering in a distressed and bloated condition, captured with difficulty and taken to a vet who pumped fermented corn from the stomach  presumably the fawn had gorged herself on pheasant feed.
Mrs Bolton kept her in a pen where, despite remaining in a very frightened state, the little beast recovered and started eating small amounts of hay.
After three days, when scouring had stopped, she was tagged, put in a sack and taken to a field which a neighbour was certain her siblings frequented.
' It was wonderful to see her reaction, ' said Mr Bolton.
' She shot up the field and then paused, stood her ground although we were still quite close and suddenly began to eat grass. '
She knew that she had come home.
A few days later the doe was seen in the company of her mother and twin sister.
At present an agoraphobic shag is languishing at the wildlife centre and, despite every inducement, Mrs Bolton can not persuade him even to get his feet wet.
She has five hedgehogs hibernating in mounds of leaves and a kestrel which was left on her doorstep with a damaged foot.
It has been a bad autumn for birds of prey and five kestrels have been brought into the sanctuary in an emaciated condition.
Worms are a staple diet and these have been in short supply due to the summer drought.
VERONICA HEATH
Divers dangers The dramatic rise in diving's popularity has led to fears for the safety of people new to the sport.
John Illman reports.
THE spectacular beauty of coral is attracting an ever increasing number of people to scuba diving.
Many Britons undergo training in the UK after trying the sport abroad and then continue diving in our colder UK waters.
The British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) has just reported a record-breaking year, with the number of dives off the UK coast estimated at about two million  100 per cent up on the previous year.
But medical diving experts are concerned that many newcomers to the sport are diving too deep, especially in the UK, exposing themselves to life-threatening injury from ' the bends' or decompression sickness.
Writing in Diver Magazine, BSAC's ' incidents adviser ', Chris Allen, warns: ' The statistics show that too many divers are still diving deeper than indicated by their abilities, ignoring commonsense recommendations or simply failing to plan their dives properly. '
The longer a diver remains under water and the greater the depth, the more nitrogen is absorbed.
When pressure is reduced during ascent, this nitrogen must be slowly eliminated through breathing, or bubbles will form in the bloodstream, giving rise to the bends.
A diver absorbing excessive nitrogen must ascend to a designated depth to reduce the pressure and remain there for a specified time for what is known as a ' decompression stop. '
But Allen warns: ' A number of cases of decompression sickness have resulted after required decompression stops have been missed due to divers running out of air towards the end of their dives. '
Some are diving to 50 metres or more.
Surgeon Commander James Francis, senior medical officer (diving medicine) at the Institute of Naval Medicine, says: ' I would have thought that 30 metres was a reasonable depth for most sports divers.
Below that your ' bottom time '  the time between leaving the surface and commencing your ascent  is so limited that it's hardly worthwhile. '
Despite the dangers, BSAC, whose training is among the most rigorous in the world, insists that diving compares favourably with other sports.
This year there were 12 fatalities linked to diving.
BSAC spokesman Kendal McDonald claims that this compares with the 35 fatalities a year associated with angling, 39 with boating, and 44 with swimming.
The club is pressing for recognition of decompression sickness as an NHS liability.
Many health authorities have been refusing to pay for treatment, arguing that divers should take out decompression insurance.
Treatment can cost anything from a few hundred pounds to up to 15,000 in exceptional circumstances.
BSAC medical officer Dr Peter Wilmhurst, of St Thomas' Hospital, London, says: ' Divers are entitled to treatment under the NHS Act in the same way as a skater who breaks a leg on the ice or a rider who breaks his back falling off a horse.
It would be a false economy not to treat divers.
If you have a diver with spinal bend, and you don't recompress them, you have someone paralysed from the waist down.
The cost to society of treating them is immense. '
Depth of experience... tyros must avoid going down too far OVERNIGHT FILE
