Animal Rahat Update

May 2011

With your help, Animal Rahat helped hundreds upon hundreds of animals this month, making it difficult to fit it all into one update!

We are making wonderful progress through our educational extension activities. Now that sugarcane season has ended, the workers are returning to their home villages, which means that bullocks are forced to travel 14 to 16 hours straight. Animal Rahat organized a meeting of bullock owners at the Sangli sugarcane factory to emphasize the importance of giving bullocks enough rest, water, and food during the journey as well as to promote other welfare measures that can help prevent injuries and illness.

In one village, people were found using harmful folk practices such as treating bullocks for lameness and even broken bones with crude massage, using branding irons on injuries and doing castrations by hammer! Rahat team members held an educational session for the villagers about the dangers of these practices as well as the fact that they violate the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

These sessions will prevent the future suffering of countless animals. Of course, this month, the Rahat team also provided relief to hundreds of animals suffering in the present. Here is just a handful of examples:

• In Kupwad village, a barn owl was attacked by crows. Someone immediately contacted the Rahat team, who rescued the bird, administered medication and held him for observation. Upon recovery, the owl was released and flew away, to everyone's delight.

• A Rahat vet witnessed an accident in which a donkey suffered a severe spinal injury. Upon being sedated, taken to the Rahat sanctuary and examined, the donkey was determined to be permanently paralysed and in great pain and was euthanised. Because of Rahat's presence, this dear soul was spared days of agony on the side of a road.
• A bullock was saved from the stress of sharp, steel spikes constantly held just inches away from his face. As you will see in the photo, some bullock owners suspend pipes from either side of their cart yokes and weld nails onto them –or, in this case, wrap them in fencing wire – to restrict the bullocks' lateral movement. These bulls are stabbed in the face or neck every time they stumble or hit a bump in the road! The Rahat team confiscated this torturous instrument, as they do every time they see anything like it. For owners who object, the team breaks out their digital camera and starts recording, while explaining the legal measures that can be taken against them. The owners invariably hand over the awful devices.

• Two kites (falcon-like birds) suffering from heatstroke had collapsed and were taken by the Rahat team to a wildlife rehabilitation centre, where they recovered and were released two days later. Had we not seen them, these beautiful birds would almost certainly have died.
• Two more puppies joined the family at the Animal Rahat sanctuary. Jimmy was in terrible shape. A Rahat vet spotted him clearly suffering from a multitude of serious ailments. He was diagnosed with severely atrophied leg muscles as a result of spinal abnormalities. He was unable to be saved but was kept comfortable and given care in his final days. Ruby is an orphan whom a caring villager dropped off at the Rahat office. She is in good health and is now a welcome playmate for puppies Sita and Gita, whom we rescued last month and who are both doing well!

In the ongoing saga of Ram Prasad – the temple elephant whose living conditions we have been working to improve – we found that he is stuck in musth again, which means he is once more enduring the mental anguish and rage of being chained by all four legs 24 hours a day. The Rahat team is doing everything possible to make life more bearable for him and has arranged for him to have unlimited access to a water tank so that he may drink and give himself showers with his trunk in order to get some relief. We are pushing the temple trustees hard on their promise to buy land soon and move Ram onto it.

There has been so much other progress this month. In the village of Ichalkaranji, there was a scarcity of drinking water for the ponies at a tonga stand, so the Rahat team convinced the owner to give them permission to build a drinking tank. It makes a huge difference for these ponies! And at a nearby hardware shop that employs 15 bullock carts, there had been no shade for the animals – but that is the case no more! Thanks to the Rahat team's persuasiveness, the owner agreed to allow a shelter for shade and a drinking tank to be erected on his property.

I could give endless examples of work like this that makes a positive difference in so many animals' lives every single day. If you are a supporter, thank you! If you would like to be part of this vital work, please join us.