Category: Uncategorized

The fierce winds of cyclone Phaillin blew away the outside extension roof of APOWA’s animal shelter, though the rest of the shelter is okay.

Cyclone Phaillin was the strongest cyclone to hit India in 14 years, and it caused widespread damage. Nearly a million people were evacuated before the storm hit, which saved a great many lives, and the human death toll was low.

However, many homes were lost; there are many displaced pets, and farm animals are left without a source of food, since pastures are covered in water and food supplies were drenched by the storm.

At APOWA’s shelter, they are coping with an influx of new animals, brought to them when people in the nearby villages, Poipat and Ghigidia, rushed to take cover from the storm in their shelter.  There are now 48 animals, both large and small, being cared for at the shelter.

APOWA has sent a team of rescuers to the worst-hit areas nearby in the Kendrapara district.  The team is providing vet care, food and medicine to animals stranded in the floods.

The electricity is still out most of the time, and the flood relief team has not yet been able to send back reports or photos.  The images above are of the work that APOWA did in 2011, following another cyclone, in which they provided much-needed food and vet care to thousands of cows whose pastures were covered in floodwaters and rescued many pets who were left homeless.

For more information or to help APOWA’s flood relief work with a donation, visit the website of Help Animals India.

Photos: Courtesy of APOWA

By Rohit Daniel,

For India’s Endangered

Re-posted with permission

To read this in the original, click here.

RARE SPECIES SIGHTING: In exciting news for dolphin lovers and wildlife enthusiasts, the officials of Harike Wildlife Sanctuary in Punjab reported spotting 12 Indus dolphins (Platanista gangetica minor) in a single sighting. This is the first time that a complete pod of the endangered dolphin species has been sighted near the sanctuary, which lies about 60 km from Amritsar.

The rare freshwater dolphins were found in the 75 km stretch of the Beas River, which includes the 3 km stretch of the Harike Wildlife Sanctuary. A joint team of officials from World Wide Fund for Nature and Harike Wildlife Sanctuary conduct monthly monitoring operations to study the movements of these endangered freshwater dolphin species.

Speaking to the press about the incident, divisional forest officer, M. Sudhagar, informed that the officials spotted a dozen Indus freshwater dolphins in three groups.

“With this single sighting, we can estimate that the number of dolphins could be around two dozen in and around the sanctuary,” he added.

Indus Dolphins Amongst Most Endangered Species

The Indus dolphin is one of the world’s rarest mammals, and is listed as the most endangered cetacean. With the construction of dams on the Indus, the population of these endangered species have drastically declined, with only 1,100 of them in existence today. These dolphins are found only in the Indus River in Pakistan, with a few rare sightings in the Sutlej and Beas tributaries in India.

The first official sighting of these dolphins in India occurred about six years ago, when officials of the Harike Wildlife Sanctuary spotted a pair of the freshwater Indus dolphins at the confluence of Sutlej and Beas Rivers in the country. Following widespread news of these rare sightings, government announced the launch of a dolphin conservation project and promised to develop the area as a major tourist hotspot. However, none of these promises have materialized till date.

A plan had been chalked out to acquire some rented accommodation in order to develop Karmowal village as a tourist destination, but the project was never taken up.

Survival Problems

River dolphins are found in some of the world’s mightiest rivers, including the Indus, Ganges, Yangtse, and the Amazon. However, according to research conducted by Mohd. Shahnawaz Khan, and published in June 2013 issue of Current Science, being found in the world’s most densely populated human environments makes river dolphins among the most threatened mammals. Further, their ecological requirements link them to food and water security issues in South Asia.

Main causes for decline in Asian species of dolphins are human perturbations and anthropogenic disturbances.

Indus River dolphin, locally called ‘bhulan’, is endemic to the Indus River system and considered as the second most threatened river dolphin after Baiji Dolphin (Baiji Lipotes vexillifer) of China which was last sighted in 2002 and is believed to be ‘functionally extinct’.

The problems the Indus river dolphins faces according to Khan include,

• Extensive fishing throughout their range of distribution which consequently reduces the availability of their prey.
• Degradation of their habitat through increased sedimentation, which is usually caused due to the deforestation of river basin
• Industrial and human waste
• Agricultural run-off with high concentration of chemical fertilizers and poisonous pesticides
• Accidental entanglement in fishing nets resulting in the death of dolphins
• Construction of large, cross-river structures like dams and barrages, which cause the isolation of small fragmented sub-populations

These river basins are home to over 15 percent of global population, and comprise some of the most densely populated and poorest areas on the planet. In order to save the dolphins and their habitat, the dependency of the locals for the water, fisheries etc. has to be reduced. It is also important to understand the ecology and distribution of the animals, which up to some extent is ongoing due to efforts of conservation organisations.

The sighting of 12 dolphins in Punjab though is a good sign indicating that the river dolphins still find Indian waters safe enough to call it home.

Rohit Daniel is freelance writer, photographer and an educator. He is an avid nature lover and enjoys travelling. He believes that animals have an equal right to our planet, and without wildlife this world would be an empty and meaningless piece of dirt floating in space.

Photo:  Wikimedia Commons / This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Achiwiki356 at the English language Wikipedia / the Beas River

Animals Lebanon in Beirut is helping many Syrian refugees with their animals.

In the September 9, 2013 issue of the Lebanon Daily Star, Brooke Anderson, in her article,  “Animals Lebanon marks five years of awareness,” writes about the dedicated work that Animals Lebanon is doing in circumstances made challenging by the nearby war in Syria.

Now around one quarter of the population of Lebanon is made up of refugees who have fled from Syria.

In November 2012, Jason Mier, Executive Director of Animals Lebanon,  received an email from a man in Damascus.  An accompanying photo showed the man, wearing a hardhat, sitting with his dog, who he’d had for fourteen years.  The man, whose name is Maan, wrote that he’d been more or less confined to his small apartment for the past year with his dog, Juicy.  The neighborhood was being bombed every day.

He wrote that he was planning to go to Switzerland to live with his daughter, but that he wouldn’t leave without Juicy.  Because of the Swiss quarantine regulations, his dog wouldn’t be able to enter Switzerland for two months.  He’d prepared nine pages of information and travel documents for Juicy, and he asked that Animals Lebanon please help by finding her a safe place to stay for two months until she could enter Switzerland to be with him.

Of course, Jason Mier immediately replied that they would help, and he found a foster home in Beirut where Juicy stayed for two months, before joining Maan in Switzerland.

Animals Lebanon is receiving about five similar requests each day from Syians for help with their animals, as well as the sixty or so requests they normally respond to.

Jason Mier says there are four small zoos in the Damascus area, and it’s difficult to get information about how the animals are doing.

In areas of Syria where there’s been a lot of shelling or where there are food shortages, life is very hard for the animals.  Animals Lebanon is doing everything they can to help the people and their animals.

To read the original article in the Lebanon Daily Star, click here.

To visit the website of Animals Lebanon or to donate, click here.

Photo: Courtesy of Animals Lebanon / This is a different dog, Chippers, who was rescued in Lebanon and now has a happy home in the U.S.