The RSPCA has shared dramatic photos showing its wackiest recent animal rescues
The RSPCA has unveiled the most peculiar animal rescues of 2025 featuring a fox caught in a chair and a puffin swept 110 miles inland from the Welsh coast. Striking images reveal unfortunate pets and wildlife caught in the most extraordinary situations before being liberated by bewildered rescue teams.
The charity has assembled a collection of the most unusual rescues from 2025 with among the strangest being a kitten stuck in sewage treatment works. Astonished workers at the facility in Handsworth, Birmingham, contacted the charity after detecting the small creature’s “booming meows”. For the biggest stories in Wales first, sign up to our daily newsletter here.
RSPCA inspector Boris Lasserres and Cara Gibbon both put on dry suits to save the kitten, dubbed ‘Olivia Twist’ in October.
Cara said: “She was trapped down a sewage flow system and we think she must have fallen from quite a height above as there was no other way she could have got herself in there.
“We know she had been in there for at least three days and with no mum around she must have been terrified.”
The kitten was taken to an animal hospital where she recovered completely and has since found a new home.
A rather unfortunate fox found himself in quite a predicament after he tumbled over garden furniture and became wedged between the slats in Mottingham, southeast London, in January.
Another young fox cub required rescue after becoming trapped inside the engine of an Amazon delivery van in Derby.
The distressed female fox was only discovered by the startled driver after she had chewed through a cable, causing a dashboard warning light to come on. In November an overweight raccoon was rescued after being spotted in Hayley Fairburn’s garden in the Cornish village of Gwennap.
Meanwhile in London a business owner was taken aback when he discovered a snake slithering around his fish and chip shop in Greenwich in July. Initially it was feared to be a python but it turned out to be a harmless corn snake that had escaped from a nearby house.
Rescuers saved another grass snake after it was found in an illegal glue trap in Liskeard, Cornwall. In April a peregrine falcon became entangled and trapped in anti-bird netting in a block of flats in Druids Heath, Birmingham.
A seagull was also fortunate to escape without injury after getting caught up in a football net in Ramsgate, Kent, in February. It wasn’t only birds getting themselves in a flap negotiating nets as in Sheffield a badger found itself tied up in knots after stumbling into a football goal.
In July the charity helped save a lost puffin which was blown 110 miles inland. The bird, nicknamed Oona after the cartoon character in the kids’ TV show Puffin Rock, was found in a garden in Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire.
The exhausted bird was nursed back to health before being returned to the Pembrokeshire coast where she had come from.
In January a shivering swan required rescue after becoming trapped by ice in the frozen Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Lancashire.
A seagull needed saving after it was found hanging from a tree having become entangled in abandoned fishing line in Manchester.
A kitten had a fortunate escape after scrambling down a pipe and becoming wedged in a blocked cellar beneath a William Hill betting shop.
The black kitten, approximately five months old, remained trapped for roughly a week in May before being freed from the bookmakers in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.
There were additional animals requiring assistance after straying into inappropriate locations.
A hedgehog found herself requiring emergency treatment after suffering injuries from a strimmer in Cheddar, Somerset.
Despite losing many of her spines in the accident she achieved a complete recovery before being returned to the wild.
Also in Somerset an owl was rescued after plummeting into a slurry pit before receiving care at an animal sanctuary in Taunton.
Animal rescuers saved a lurcher named Peanut, described as the “thinnest dog” an officer had ever encountered.
Officers also reunited a family with their cherished dog eight years after it was taken by backyard breeders.
Rita and Philip Potter were heartbroken when five year old labrador Daisy was stolen from their garden in Norfolk in 2017.
The RSPCA traced Daisy to a property in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where she was discovered in a severely undernourished condition in February.
RSPCA officers also rescued a 12-year-old horse from a waterlogged field in Edenbridge, Kent, after the animal became entangled in his straps during January.
Just days afterwards a tawny owl required assistance after becoming ensnared on a branch by its wing.
The creature was discovered suspended 20ft above rapidly flowing water in Bedwas, Caerphilly.
Three grey seals called Shakira, Iggy Pop, and Elmer were set free back into the wild in Devon during December.
These seals represent merely the beginning of numerous seals that will be returned to the ocean.
During the year, the RSPCA received 634,000 reports concerning trapped or mistreated animals marking one of the charity’s most demanding years on record.
RSPCA superintendent Simon Osborne said: “Every single day throughout the year our teams rescue, rehabilitate, and rehome hundreds of animals with very special backgrounds and stories of triumph over adversity.”
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