IFAW's Animal Rescue Blog

IFAW Germany: A Visual Protest to Help Save Elephants

This post was filled by the International Fund for Animal Welfare's press officer in Germany, Andreas Dinkelmeyer.

Let's save the elephants! Early on Tuesday we left Hamburg for Berlin, the capital of Germany, in the high speed train. We had prepared an action to visualize how many elephants die per day. In the days to the action we prepared 416 elephant footprints, a huge banner and our petition elephant. In the very heart of Berlin, in front of Brandenburg Gate, we wanted to make the public and politicians aware of the plight of the elephants.

As soon as we had set up, people came up to us, asking what this was all about and eagerly signed our petition elephant, a wooden, live size elephant with our call to end ivory trade. Soon several MP’s also came to visit us and the Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the countries heavily affected by elephants poaching. Both, MP’s and Ambassador voiced their support for our action and for the elephants and agreed that the German government needs to arrive at a firm position against ivory trade for the next CITES conference in March 2010. The German government has a special responsibility as Germany played a key role during the last CITES Conference in The Hague, forging an agreement that four southern African countries could sell their ivory stockpiles. The stockpile sale ignited even more elephant poaching.

It made a quite impressive picture, the hundreds of footprints in front of Brandenburg Gate, a stones throw from the German parliament. We got many admiring remarks from Germans and tourists alike, commending our work to protect the elephants.

The only lasting solution is an end to all ivory trade, only then will these gentle giants of the savannas be able to live in peace.

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For more information on how you can help IFAW help elephants, please visit IFAW.org

IFAW South Africa - New Vet Volunteers Land in Happy Valley

This post was written by Christina Pretorius, Programme Manager for the International Fund for Animal Welfare Southern Africa. It is part of a series that will track the progress of our cat and dog project in Cape Town, South Africa, in the Happy Valley informal settlement.

(15 September 2009) Yesterday morning bloomed blustery and overcast, but not cold thank goodness. Spring has definitely come to the Western Cape and daisies flower thick in every grass verge.

Three new volunteer veterinarians arrived over the weekend – Paolo Koch from Italy via the UK where he has been working in a small animal practice and brushing up on his English (which seemed excellent to me), Laura 1 and Laura 2 – Laura Dobson and Laura Waring – both new graduates from London University.

They will be working at IFAW’s dog and cat project for between one week (Laura 2) and three months (Laura 1). Paolo will stay for two weeks.Yay! With Rozelle, our fulltime vet on maternity leave, we need all the help we can get.

After doing a clinic orientation we decided to get our newbies straight into the saddle by taking them on Monday’s mobile clinic to Happy Valley. There were dogs and cats from the area that had been sterilised, returned home and needed their stitches taking out, plus the usual mobile clinic activities of consulting and treating, and our door-to-door work to encourage proper pet care and collections of course.

'Freddy' the rescued seal finds company

Freddy, the first rescued seal pup in the season for IFAW-supported British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) in the UK, is happy to share life with another fellow Harbor seal undergoing rehabilitation. Freddy rescued just a few weeks ago, was named after International Fund for Animal Welfare C.E.O. - Fred O’Regan, so we are particularly proud of this little one. The following is a report from BDMLR staff on the ground working around the clock to care for Freddy and Jules - her companion.

They are both doing well now with Freddy weighing in this morning at 12.2 kgs. So in the three weeks from when she arrived, she has gained 4 kgs and yesterday was finished with milk, having been weaned over the past four days.

We have to get their systems used to eating solid food, so for now it’s only small trimmed-down herring. Once their systems gets used to the fish we will increase it to a percentage of their body weight per day, divided over four feeds.

Freddy and Jules have been together in the same pen for around ten days now and seem to be bonding well. Sharing the pen is essential to their mental welfare as it means they get their stimulation from each other rather than looking to us.

Freddy and Jules are swimming between feeds and are very playful in the water; they have burst a lot of the inflatable toys now that they have teeth. We have been putting child’s arm floaty wings with them half-filled with water then blown up. They seem to be throwing them around until they burst, then they lose interest.

Hopefully within the next few weeks Freddy and Jules will be eating for themselves, once they do this they will go to the outside pool where they will fatten up and when they’re up to 30kg, they will be released back into the wild.

For more information on the International Fund for Animal Welfare's efforts for seals, please visit www.ifaw.org.

Update from Italy: May 1, 2009

The International Fund for Animal Welfare continues to support animal emergency relief teams on the ground in quake-ravaged Italy. The following personal account is from Stefano Petrazzini working on behalf of the Lega Anti Vivisezione (LAV)- a group supported by IFAW.

Thanks to many generous donations, we took another journey this week with two cars full of pet food, dog kennels and medications to the earthquake zone. In the process, we have seriously risked melting the engine on the climbing hills!

Today, I will talk about eyes. At first not about the eyes of our animal friends, but about the eyes of the people we met in the tents or on the roads in the countryside - the eyes of the veterinarians of the Piazza d'Armi (L'Aquila) camp, our first stop where we delivered food, medicines and bedding for cats.

The vets are working both for the animals and for their human friends and they help people to be able to keep their pets with them. One way to do this is by providing cleaning kits so that the presence of dogs in the tents doesn’t become a problem. These people have already lost practically everything so the company of their beloved four-legged friends is something that keeps them going.

Update from Italy: April 24/09

IFAW’s work to rescue animals affected by the earthquake in Italy continues this week with a number of exciting stories to report on.

Our partners on the ground from the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise "G. Caporale" (IZS A&M) who were on-scene hours after the quake struck, told us about a heartwarming story of a girl and her pet dog. Veterinarian Paolo Dalla Villa from IZS A&M explains:

“Immediately after the earthquake, we were approached by the Italian Red Cross, who had found a dog named Nikki, that they wanted us to try to reunite it with its owner. When I arrived at the refugee camp in l'Aquila with the dog in my car I found out that she was owned by a little girl who had lost everything in the earthquake, except Nikki.”

Paolo added that one of the immediate challenges faced in L’Aquila is with displaced pets that need food in the tent cities and stray dog control that is dealt with a specific action plan, according to the “no kill” Italian regulation for the protection of pet animals.

For the past week, IFAW vet contractor Andrea Capobianco has been working from the Emergency Operations Center to provide key logistical guidance and has also deployed to some of the hardest-hit areas in search of trapped or injured animals. In two separate incursions this week, the rescue team, integrated by 5 dog catchers and 4 vets, brought 12 dogs and 17 cats to the center. All of them underwent veterinary check-ups and were micro-chipped. Of those, 3 dogs and 6 cats were happily reunited with their owners and 15 dogs were adopted. In those 2 days, 6 cats needed emergency medical assistance while 2 of them had surgery to heal bone fractures. A large number of people continue to visit the kennel looking for food, medications and ant parasitic drugs to care for their own animals. Andrea Capobianco talks about field work:

“On the 19th a dog, named Chicco, had been found alone on the road. After he was caught, he was micro-chipped and was ready to be shipped to another city. Thanks to the pictures we took before sending him out on the 21st , his owner was able to identify him and they were reunited just in time!.”

By April 19, the Emergency Hotline had received 400 calls for help leading to 201 animals including dogs, cats, horses, cattle and others assisted in this disaster.

In addition to our collaboration with IZS, IFAW has awarded a grant to local group Lega Anti Vivisezione (LAV) working around the clock in L’Aquila to save animals affected by the disaster. LAV has actively cooperated with the rescue team and firemen to rescue and evacuate animals trapped in houses, provide food, vet care, micro chipping and reuniting pets with owners.

Photo: IFAW / S.Hughes

IFAW Responds to Italy's Earthquake

Post submitted by IFAW's Sasha Ramirez-Hughes

9:30am, Friday 17th April

We’ve just arrived at the earthquake rescue command centre located just outside l’Aquila. I’m travelling with a local veterinarian, Andrea Capobianco, who is part of the local animal incident response team who, with IFAW’s support are rescuing, treating, and reuniting the thousands of animal victims of the earthquake.

All roads to l’Aquila are closed, so we took a bus to a suburb about 20 miles outside of town and hitched a lift the rest of the way with somebody travelling to the disaster site. While we were waiting for our lift, I looked for signs of the earthquake but it seemed at first glance that life was going on as normal – people were out shopping and going to work. Only after a few minutes did I realise that here and there plaster had fallen off the buildings and that nearly all of the vehicles on the road to and from l’Aquila’s centre were emergency services – red fire trucks, orange mountain rescue vehicles, ambulances, army vehicles, and others. As we got closer to the command centre we saw more and more collapsed buildings. Nearly everyone that we spoke to described the centre of l’Aquila as like a warzone.

The animal emergency brought by the earthquake is severe and has three fronts: One is that some animals are still trapped in the rubble. Rescuers who haven’t yet been able to free them have been feeding them through cracks or via pipes but many are injured, frightened, and need urgent medical attention.

Another is that more than thirty thousand people and thousands of their beloved animal companions are living in more than 70 tent camps on the hills outside l’Aquila. Some of these animals were in poor shape even before the earthquake and weren’t vaccinated properly. This presents a real health risk to other animals and people as the close proximity means that diseases can spread easily. Vets and volunteers are scrambling to treat and vaccinate any animals that they find.

The final is that thousands of displaced pets have been housed temporarily in shelters around l’Aquila. However, these filled quickly and many animals were relocated to centres many miles away, far away from their owners and with no identification. At a cat sanctuary in Rome, we met two friendly cats nicknamed “Seismic” and “Tremor” by the staff that were brought in from l’Aquila and are being well cared for. Sadly, the there is little prospect of reuniting them with their owners, as they have no identification. The animal response team is working to document and microchip any displaced animals that they come across in order to create a searchable database to reunite pets with owners.

This afternoon, we’ll be heading into the refugee camps to assist with the assessment of the animal population there.

More to come tomorrow.

Monk Seal Is One of the 6th Most Critically Endangered Mammals

IFAW's support of the Mediterranean monk seal organization, MOm, has been responsible for creating a network of people across Greece who help in sharing information about and in rescuing abandoned, displaced and/or stranded seals. IFAW's support has also contributed to the development of a monk seal rehabilitation center in a prime location. The survival of each newborn monk seal is critical to the survival of the species as there are fewer than 500 left in the wild today.

New Website Launched to Honour Animals in War

Simon the cat was famous for catching rats on board HMS Amethyst...Rob, a­ Collie took part in landings during North African Campaign with an Infantry unit...Upstart ­was a police horse that while on patrol duty in Bethnal Green a flying bomb exploded within 75 yards, showering both horse and rider with broken glass and debris.

These are just a few of the many animals that are honoured for their service during times of war in the past century.

In November 2004, a monument was unveiled at Brook Gate Park Lane, London This monument serves as a powerful and moving tribute to all the animals that served, suffered and died alongside the British, Commonwealth and Allied forces in the wars and conflicts of the 20th century.

Check out the new website - http://www.animalsinwar.org.uk which tells the story of the memorial and the animals that it honours.

VICTORY! eBay Announces Global Ban on Ivory

We applaud eBay’s decision to institute a global ban on the sale of elephant ivory products by 1 January 2009 and call on all other internet traders to follow their example.

eBay’s decision was announced just hours before the release of our latest investigative report showing Internet trade in wildlife poses a significant and immediate threat to the survival of elephants and many other endangered species.

You can download the report at http://www.ifaw.org

The report, which followed a six-week investigation that tracked more than 7,000 wildlife product listings on 183 Web sites in 11 countries, singled out eBay as the largest contributor to the problem, responsible for almost two-thirds of the online trade in wildlife products worldwide

The report, Killing with Keystrokes: An Investigation of the Illegal Wildlife Trade on the World Wide Web, will be released tomorrow and shows that more than 70% of all endangered species’ products listed for sale on the Internet occur in the United States. The amount of trade tracked in the U.S. was nearly 10 times the trade tracked in the next two leading countries, the United Kingdom and China.

Elephant ivory dominated the investigation, comprising 73% of all product listings tracked. Exotic birds were second, accounting for nearly 20% of the listings tracked, but primates, big cats and other animals are also falling victim to the e-trade in live animals and wildlife products, according to the report.

We congratulate eBay on this very important step to protect elephants. With these findings and eBay’s leadership, there is no doubt left that all Internet dealers need to take responsibility for their impact on endangered species by enacting and enforcing a ban on all online wildlife trade. eBay has set the standard for protecting elephants, now governments and other online dealers need to follow their example.

Thanks for all your support in keeping the pressure on eBay!

'Pick-Up-Plastic' Images From Around The World

As part of Animal Action Week this year 13 IFAW country offices are coordinating beach clean-up operations with a theme called 'Pick Up Plastic'.

'Pick Up Plastic' has allowed communities to participate in the clean-up effort globally. Animal Action Week is designed to raise awareness and this year IFAW's focus is on the terrible crisis within our oceans and the fight against careless pollution. The number one culprit being plastic, in all forms.

'Pick Up Plastic' events are underway in Australia, China, East Africa, France, Germany, India, Mexico, the Middle East, Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, the UK and USA. Cleaner and safer marine habitats are the leading result of this wonderful initiative, however IFAW is also asking that teams in every country collect data to illustrate just how serious the problem is. This data will be used to document the most polluted areas and can contribute to lobbying efforts for better protection of our ocean waters!

Additionally, IFAW asks everyone to consider the 'Plastic Bag Pledge' during Animal Action Week this year. Signing up is a simple commitment you can make that will have an enormous impact on our Earth.

Thanks to everyone who has helped IFAW make a difference so far!