IFAW's Animal Rescue Blog

Firefighters save kitten

It took two fire trucks, five firefighters, a bunch of animal rescuers and about 250 gallons of water to rescue a 2-pound kitten in Parkersburg, West Virginia on Monday.  The kitten had been sighted in a sewer storm drain, and absolutely refused to budge despite bribes of food from animal control officers.  Firefighters showed up on the scene to make noise to try to frighten the cat into leaving the drain, but that kitten wasn't moving.  Finally, the cat's aversion to water was what won the day.  Firefighters ran water through the drain system, enough to get the kitten's paws wet, and the indignant kitten rushed into the hands of a fireman waiting in a manhole.

All in all, the rescue took about ninety minutes, and the cat was adopted from the local animal shelter the very next day.  I sure hope the new owners plan to keep that kitten indoors.

Photo of the Week: Elephants get 9 year break!

Photo of Week is a feature that highlights the work IFAW does around the world everyday to rescue orphaned, injured, or mistreated animals.

Addo National Park, South Africa

An African elephant and her calf walk away from the camera towards a watering hole in the new territory purchased by the Addo National Park in South Africa. The 15,000 acre purchase was made possible by a $2.5 million grant from IFAW.  Elephants like these two got a nine year break with the suspension of ivory trade reached at the 2007 CITES conference in The Hague. Click here to read more.

To learn more about IFAW's critical work saving elephants and their habitats, click here.

Flooding forces evacuation at Texas zoo

More than 100 animals were evacuated from the Frank Buck Zoo in Gainesville, Texas on Monday as flood waters from heavy rains crept into cages and enclosures.  The rescue effort went smoothly and quickly, in stark contrast to a botched rescue back in 1981 when dozens of animals drowned with no flood evacuation plan in place.  Not only has the zoo since added a levee and a plan, they had a chance to run a dress-rehearsal three weeks ago when the zoo was also evacuated after less serious flooding.  All the practice contributed to a problem-free experience today which took just two hours.

Most of the animals were taken to higher ground within the city limits, but a few of the largest animals remained on zoo property, in areas above the water.  Zoo officials hope to return the animals to their regular enclosures on Thursday or Friday as the water has receded, and volunteers from the Dallas Zoo will be on hand to help.

Spring Wildlife Survives Canadian Flooding

Heavy winter snows in the mountains of British Columbia, CA began melting earlier this month. Spring time in lower areas becomes a time of worry, wondering how much of that snow will melt and flood lower populated areas. Reuters reports that the threat of major problems is over. Hopefully....

While the waters may have temporarily lowered, critical access roads and railways have been submerged in the mudslides and wildlife in areas of BC have become displaced; most of them juveniles. IFAW has granted support to the Northern Lights Wildlife Society to assist in the rescue and rehabilitation of the displaced wildlife. It is hard to estimate how many animals will continue to flow in, however, below are the stores of several that were able to survive...

Stories submitted by Angelica Langen...

Happy Faces all around the Conference Center

The International Fund for Animal Welfare's Lynn Levine is on the ground at CITES in the Hague...she filed this story about the situation in committee with elephants yesterday...

June 14 - E-Day

At the end of the day yesterday, the African elephant range states met once again to try and hammer out an agreement. Later in the evening, a representative from Chad flew in and deliberations continued well into the night (some have heard up until the morning). From these meetings, a new proposal, jointly submitted by Chad and Zambia (!) incorporating a significant amount of the philosophy of the pro-conservation range states, emerged. The accord calls for a nine-year suspension of all trade in ivory. It also states that there will be no discussions on ivory trade until the nine-year period has ended. Another element that proponents of the original Kenya and Mali proposal were pushing for was cross-border cooperation among all range states plus an African Elephant Action Plan. The concession for gaining this suspension was the release of additional stockpiles from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, but only ivory which was already part of the officially registered government stockpile by January 31, 2007. The quantities are somewhat unclear: several African delegates have stated that these additional stockpiles total around 70 tonnes, but the Secretariat announced in its press conference earlier today that it was more than double. Such a higher number than expecting could be worrying, but everyone is still feeling positive that 1) all four of these countries wanting to dump their stockpiles must pass CITES scrutiny before the clock starts ticking on the nine years, so the resting period could actually be much more than just the stated nine years and 2) this is a great day for both the elephants and the African countries that support conservation efforts on their behalf.

Everyone here is not surprisingly, exhausted. Still, we're off to celebrate!

Lynn

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MULTIMEDIA - You can also listen to IFAW's Program Manager for Wildlife Trade, Peter Pueschel, discuss our conservation work at CITES via Windows Media Player.  Thanks to WAMU out of Washington D.C. and American University for the stream.

IFAW Helps Save Tigers at CITES!

The International Fund for Animal Welfare's Lynn Levine is on the ground at CITES in the Hague...she filed this story about the situation in committee with tigers yesterday...

The IFAW office bubblying with excitement after the tiger win. We helped save the tigers!

I popped into Committee 2 to get a sense of what was going on, and for the five or so minutes that I was sitting there, the proceedings were actually quite entertaining! ( Who'd have thought?).

The draft decision from yesterday was still undergoing some final tweaks to the wording. The EU had proposed that only tiger range state parties be named in the document, instead of "parties" as was written. The EU was apparently concerned that the decision would negatively affect their use of tigers in circuses.

Meanwhile, the Chinese delegation tried to narrow the scope of the decision by having it apply only to "international" trade but this was voted down; the US delegate totally rocked when he asked the Chair to read back the paragraph after the vote to ensure that this "international" designation had not been inadvertently kept in. It was really great to see the US taking such a strong position in support of the wishes of the other tiger range states, including India, Cambodia and Nepal.

The Chinese objected to the final vote, suggesting that perhaps with so many empty seats, there maybe was not a quorum, but the Chair directed him to look around the (obviously full) room.

It all happened so fast, several of us observers were unsure as to what had actually happened. Apparently, it's not over until everyone has left the room (preventing anyone from objecting to the vote and calling for a do-over).

What a great day for tigers and for all of the IFAW team and coalition members that worked together to make this happen!

Lynn

Saving Road Kill's Babies

Currently Wild Care (see previous post from February 2007 and April 2007) is overwhelmed with orphaned and injured wildlife patients, just as it is every summer Although baby birds, opossums, ducklings and turtles are lots of fun to care for, the reasons why they have been brought to the Center are not so bittersweet.

Busy parents become casualties on busy roads, leaving their babies orphaned and alone. And not all are lucky enough to be found and brought into rehab.

This isn't anything new, animals are hit by cars all the time, all over the US. "Road kill" has been the root of jokes for many years. There are no laws that protect against road casualties. It's something that we live with and will continue to live with.

Therefore, the Cape Cod Times featured Wild Care and it's "babies" as a plea to drivers to slow down. If these photos don't encourage drivers to slow down I don't know what will!

Back to the Drawing Board for Elephants at CITES

The International Fund for Animal Welfare's Lynn Levine is on the ground at CITES in the Hague...she filed this story about the situation in committee with elephants just a few hours ago...

Hi all:

Well, it's back to the drawing board on elephants. The elephant discussions were initiated in Committee 1 this afternoon and each proposing party was given the floor to introduce his proposal. All of these parties were of the opinion that given more time the range states would be able to come to a consensus so the committee agreed unanimously to postpone. There will be another meeting of the African range states today/tonight, facilitated by the EU (who has proposed a worrying "compromise") and chaired by the Chilean delegate (who also chaired last week's SC). Should they reach an agreement and a document is available by tomorrow morning, the issues will be discussed in Committee I in the morning. If not, then they can raise the issue in the afternoon. If there's still not document, then the issue will arrive in the plenary Thursday morning.

On another front, the Australian proposal urging parties to seek alternatives to ingredients derived from endangered species in traditional medicines was adopted, with one problem: the EU removed a paragraph specifically calling on parties to develop alternatives in lieu of using parts and derivatives from commercially bred animals. Not exactly sure what the EU was doing here, but this certainly doesn't bode well with regard to our efforts to suppress the commercial tiger farms in China.

The Asian Big Cat document was postponed until tomorrow.

That's all she wrote!

Lynn

Jacques Cousteau day

Ninety-seven years ago today, Jacques Cousteau was born in France.  He led an exciting and purpose-filled life of discovery as a scientist, photographer, filmmaker, and most of all, a conservationist. Cousteau's talents as a filmmaker led to the development of the popular documentary television series "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau". In a unique way, it allowed people around the world to explore the mysteries of the ocean from their sofa, which in turn encouraged the average person to care about marine life and preservation.

Part of popular culture, Cousteau was immortalized in music by John Denver with the song, "Calypso", and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the United States in 1985. 

Although he passed away in 1997, his name remains synonymous with the sea and sea exploration, as well as respect for creatures living in the deep.  His work lives on through The Cousteau Society for the protection of ocean life, a group which now has hundreds of thousands of members. 

IFAW Helps Unveil Worlds Largest Tiger Mosaic at CITES!

The International Fund for Animal Welfare's Lynn Levine is on the ground at CITES in the Hague...she filed this story about the International Tiger Coalition's Unveiling of the world's largest tiger mosaic made up of over 25,000 supporter images just a few hours ago...

June 7, The Hague

Today, an unprecedented 35 NGO's were represented in the unveiling of the International Tiger Coalition Tiger Mosaic. Crowd turnout was great, and volunteers from a bunch of organizations worked the crowd with Polaroids of attendees, many of whom were delegates, to upload onto the electronic version of the mosaic. I’m excited to report that turnout among IFAW staff was impressive, and I think for the first time in IFAW history, we may even have some decent imagery to support our photogenically-challenged Wildlife Trade program! Prominent among the coalition spokespeople were our very own Vivek Menon and Grace Gabriel, who continually do us proud. Special mention should go to the volunteers who wore the tiger suit, as it was unseasonably warm (for Northern Europe!) during the event.

Photo: BBC News