WSPA - Animals in Disasters Blog

Fears for cattle after volcano erupts in Java

Indonesia is struggling to recover from a double disaster: while humanitarian workers battle bad weather to get aid to the survivors of the tsunami in Sumatra, people and animals in Java are suffering from the eruptions of Mount Merapi on Tuesday and Thursday.

Gas and ash from the volcano has killed 34 people and 345 cattle. Several thousand people have been evacuated from the area, but farmers in this agricultural zone are worried for their cattle. Our Indonesian member society Profauna needs around $8,000 for animal shelters, emergency veterinary treatment and feed, and we’re glad that we can give some of that while another animal group provides the rest.

We’re also providing technical support: one of our Disaster Liaison Officers (DLO) is heading out tomorrow for five days, and our Disaster Assessment Response Team (DART) will join her from Bangkok. She will also meet people from the Indonesian Veterinary Association and together they’ll make a thorough assessment of what animals in the area need. For now, we’ll focus our efforts on cattle and monkeys; Profauna estimates there are around 1,000 cattle and 100 monkeys in need. But Merapi is showing no sign of calming down yet.

Update on Asia floods

 

Following on from last week, when serious flooding was occurring in Thailand and Vietnam, unfortunately both countries continue to be battered; the Philippines has now joined them, with Cyclone Megi leaving at least 200,000 people homeless in the northern island of Luzon. We are conducting a remote assessment of livestock and companion animals and hope to know more about this situation soon.  

In Thailand, where two large areas have been affected by floods, members of the Disaster Management team in Bangkok completed an assessment in the western provinces of Petchburi and Karnchanaburi. Together with the government’s department of livestock, our staff found that 14,000 cattle will benefit from access to mineral blocks, which we are subsidising. Supplies will be distributed next week. However, Nagorn province in central Thailand has also been affected by its worst floods in 50 years. WSPA has already conducted an assessment and will deploy a team on the ground to deliver mineral blocks for livestock and pet food for companion animals. 

Floods continue to devastate the Central Vietnamese provinces of Quang Binh and  Ha Tinh, as we reported last week, however the ever-changing situation of the rains has means no access for our staff to assess the situation on the ground. We are in constant meetings with local governmental departments and NGOs, and, staff from our South and Southeast Asia office are compiling assessment information. 

On a more conclusive note, we are providing further funding towards the Pakistan floods of August is to begin as soon as possible via the Vets Care Club (VCC) in the same area where efforts have been concentrated, Kot Adu. Some 2,500 animals will benefit from vaccinations against foot-and-mouth disease and intestinal worms, common amongst flood-affected livestock, and offering them greater resistance to the oncoming winter. In addition, we will donate veterinary equipment to VCC to further strengthen their future ability to cope in disasters. 

As for Europe’s most serious current environmental disaster, Hungary’s toxic sludge spill, WSPA has given a grant of £1,500 to the Rex Foundation which is coordinating the animal response to the spill. This grant, given alongside other organisations such as the Dogs Trust and the RSPCA, will help provide emergency veterinary equipment to treat the affected animals in the field and also in their veterinary surgery. Our specialists here also have been giving technical veterinary advice.

When it rains…

It’s been a wet couple of months around the world. In Nicaragua, a series of tropical storms has left a significant animal welfare need, particularly in the district of Malacatoya: flood waters there have not receded and there is a risk of disease and malnutrition. We’re funding a programme of feed and veterinary care for 2,650 animals (200 horses, 400 cattle, 200 pigs, 1,500 chicken, 350 dogs), and helping 400 families. We’re doing this in collaboration with a local group, Fundación Amarte, as well as the Nicaraguan Army and Civil Defence.

We’re keeping up our work in Haiti, too. 5,063 animals were treated in September – that’s an average of 203 animals per day. In total, we’ve treated 36,813 animals and vaccinated 25,406 animals in Haiti since our work began there.

In Thailand, heavy rainfall has flooded the west of the country, especially the two provinces of Petchburi and Karnchanaburi. 10,000 cattle need emergency feed after stockpiles were washed away and grazing land submerged. So far no diseases or deaths have been reported. Two members of the Disaster Management team in Bangkok travelled to the region over the weekend to assess the situation and we will have more information from their report this week.

Tropical depressions in central Vietnam have killed 66 people and displaced 57,580, and damaged agricultural infrastructure in Quang Binh and Ha Tinh. Figures available so far indicate that nearly 31,000 cattle, 14,000 pigs, and 573,000 poultry have been killed. Damian Woodberry from our Asia office will travel to Vietnam to meet the local Disaster Liaison Officers, governmental departments and NGOs, and determine the scale of the animal need.

Meanwhile, another typhoon is approaching the Phillippines and we’re monitoring its movements.

Work continues in Pakistan – a first-hand rescue case

 
Dr. Waseem Shaukat from the Vets Care Club (VCC) and Pakistan’s University of Veterinary Animals Sciences, is leading WSPA ground operations. His team was in Kot Adu by the River Indus, a district severely affected by the floods.

Although the human population had been evacuated, relief agencies were unable to rescue animals from a sudden surge. When the team reached the area a few days later, the animals were in a terrible condition, with many injured and affected with various diseases.

I have just heard one heart-warming story from Kot Adu, which demonstrates the importance of operations on the ground, especially at this time of buffalo calving.

One farmer, named Sardar Khan, begged Shaukat’s team for help for his buffalo, which had given birth hours before. The animal had remained unfed during labour and birth of the calf. When the team arrived, both mother and calf were in need of immediate nutrition and energy. Unfortunately, the mother was unable to feed her calf because she could not produce enough milk. Therefore, calcium, high-energy feed and vitamins were given to the buffalo, and glucose to the calf, as well as de-worming medicine.

Both animals’ health instantly improved and Mr. Khan was registered for the WSPA-funded emergency feeding programme. “‘You are the only ones who we saw here working for our animals in this situation where animals are the priority of no-one,” Mr. Khan says. “Those who are working for only humans usually forget that these animals are our assets and we are totally dependent on them for our livelihoods.”

 

Animal welfare is human welfare: WSPA and SPHERE India working together to ensure the people and animals of Leh survive minus 30 degree winter

We’re really pleased that the humanitarian agency SPHERE India wants to team up with us to work in Leh, Kashmir. They understand, as we do, that human welfare and animal welfare are inextricably linked – especially in rural areas. And when disaster strikes, as it has in recently in Kashmir with flash flooding and mud slides caused by heavy monsoon rains, devastated communities need their animals in order to survive.

Therefore we’re collaborating with the SPHERE coalition for the first time, lending them our animal welfare expertise and leadership. To recap on the situation in Leh, in early August, floods and mudslides killed 179 people and 1,441 animals – including cattle, dzo (a yak-cow hybrid), donkeys, sheep and goats.

The floods also destroyed much of the region’s agricultural land and infrastructure – including hundreds of homes and vital bridges. At least 20 per cent of the feed and fodder that had been put aside for the animals to live on through the Kashmiri winter from October to February, when temperatures can drop to below -30 degrees Celsius, has now gone. This devastation has affected at least 23 villages; villages that traditionally rear and depend on nearly 14,000 livestock.

Without immediate aid, many, many more of these already stressed animals could die from foot and mouth disease, starvation and cold.

The Punjab Regional Government’s Department of Animal Husbandry has agreed to provide nearly 10,000 tonnes of cattle fodder and concentrated feed. We’re going to deliver another 16 tonnes of animal feed, using local distribution centres and our member society, JeevAshram, and we’ll administer more than 10,000 foot and mouth and 1,500 tetanus vaccines. This will help around 10,000 animals across the 23 villages – safeguarding the livelihoods of around 2,500 families who depend on them.

Stockpiling Feed in Jammu and Kashmir

Just as Pakistan still reels from recent flooding, the Leh District in Jammu and Kashmir state in neighbouring India has also been badly affected, with a large proportion of the region’s crops destroyed and many animals potentially in need of assistance.  WSPA India’s Ashish Sutar was invited to join a team from SPHERE, a coalition of humanitarian groups, to assess the situation on the ground. With a harsh winter approaching, feed destroyed and a shortfall in supplies of concentrated fodder, the team found that there is an urgent need to increase stockpiles of feed for winter, as well as to vaccinate animals against diseases resulting from the presence of floodwaters.

In the coming days, WSPA, together with Delhi-based member society, Jeevasham, will begin to deliver 16 tonnes of animal feed to local distribution centres and administer over 10,000 foot and mouth and 1,500 tetanus vaccines.  This aid will reach around 10,000 animals in an area where about 13,668 livestock are reared across 23 villages, and potentially safeguard the livelihoods of an estimated 2,000-2,500 families, who depend on their animals.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, despite the ongoing poor security situation preventing the dispatch of a WSPA team to Islamabad the local Vet Care Club is assessing what the animals will need as attention now turns to Pakistan’s recovery. With WSPA funding, the VCC was able to feed and vaccinate some 1,500 animals in immediate need following the recent floods.