A project to bring two rescue bears to the Isle of Wight has reached its fundraising target, in just five months.

The Island community has rallied around Wildheart Animal Sanctuary's campaign for Benji and Balu, raising £150,000.

It is hoped the European Brown Bears will be at the Sandown site as early as next year.

Head of fundraising, Christine Harty, said: “We cannot thank our supporters on the Isle of Wight and across the UK enough.

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"The outpouring of support we have received since announcing our plans to rescue Benji and Balu in May this year has been overwhelming, and we are eternally grateful to every single donor, community fundraiser and corporate partner that has helped us reach this milestone”.

Despite the good news, the project has also suffered a blow after the sponsored flight to get the bears here, fell through.

It means the sanctuary has extended the fundraising target by £75,000, as it now needs to raise the funds to secure another one.

The sanctuary’s COO, Lawrence Bates, said: “The news that the sponsored flight had fallen through was crushing for everyone involved as it left a huge hole in our campaign. 

(Image: Wildheart Animal Sanctuary.)

"We have no choice but to continue fundraising, as there is no Plan B for these bears. If we don't rescue them, there is nobody else going in to save them, so we simply have to succeed.

"Everyone here at Wildheart is re-doubling their efforts to ensure we get to this new goal as quickly as we can and help bring Benji and Balu to safety.”

Christine added: "If you have any connections or contacts that may be able to help us transport Benji and Balu to our Sanctuary, please reach out to us at fundraising@wildheartanimalsanctuary.org to have an initial discussion.”

The sanctuary is in the process of a building a new habitat.

The site has already been cleared and the construction of two bear caves, streams and ponds has started.

Next, building platforms for the bears to climb on will be finalised, as will the design of the bear house and the new visitor lookout.

It is believed that this will be the first time ever bears have been rescued out of Azerbaijan.

As there are no labs to perform the required pre-transport health checks, no drugs to inoculate the bears for these checks and no vets qualified to perform them, they must be flown in from other countries and then samples flown back to the UK for testing.

The sanctuary will even need to build the crates to transport them in.