Saviours of stray animals

Community effort

With the scorching sun above her, Millie, a stray dog, paced before a meat shop in Mangaluru, waiting for her daily meal. However, the shutters didn’t rise that day. Neither did it rise the next day nor the day after that. Millie wasn’t aware that a lockdown was implemented overnight and that it would not be lifted for another two months.

Millie desperately looked around for food, until a good Samaritan came to her rescue.

“The Covid–19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown proved to be an immense challenge,” says Suma Nayak, co-trustee and founder of Animal Care Trust (ACT) in Mangaluru.

ACT is one of the organisations that led from the front in taking care of animals in the coastal city during the lockdown.

The first step was to ensure food supply to community animals as well as to the pet shops. In a show of outstanding cooperation, ACT volunteers along with community members divided themselves into groups, each tending to 3-4 areas in the city as well as its outskirts, to feed stray animals.

Apart from procuring and distributing food, another challenge was obtaining medicines, especially distemper vaccines.

Contrary to popular belief, the lockdown did not reduce the instances of animals needing rescue. Vehicles with passes speeding along empty roads proved dangerous for many unsuspecting animals. Instances of people abandoning their pets in public places also did not cease during the lockdown.

In these trying times, social media played a pivotal role in fund raising, feeding and animal adoption.

Generally, around 25-30 adoptions would be ensured through adoption camps, usually held twice a month. However, the camps haven’t been held since the lockdown was enforced, causing the shelter at ACT to be filled to its maximum limit.

To address the situation, the team used their Facebook and Instagram pages to inform animal lovers of dogs, cats, puppies and kittens in need of a home.

“ACT is genuinely doing so much for animals. Since we cannot go to the field and help, the least we can do is recognise their efforts through donation,” says Shalini, who donated to their efforts.

The online platform proved especially important in dispelling the unfounded fear of contracting Covid-19 from domestic animals, at a time when people were beginning to shun feeding them or asking neighbours to send their pets out of the apartments.

The struggle to change the mentality of people has also been an additional task.

“It is difficult to help out so many stray animals but the way the volunteers deal with animals and their patience is truly commendable,” says Hasina, one of ACT’s supporters.

Suma Nayak has a few words of wisdom: “It is our fundamental duty to take care of all animals and birds. Come forward to adopt animals. Pick the weakest or handicapped ones and give it another life. For that is where true love lies.”