By Stephanie Edwards
"My husband always says, the tsunami came in and with it, it took Sherry."
HSI Asia Director Sherry Grant spoke these words to a hushed audience at the 2005 Animal Care Expo, which was held in early April in Atlanta. That fact Grant could stand and articulate these words meant that she didn't mean them literally; she was not swept up in the December 26 tsunami that killed more than 160,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage in Southeast Asia.
But Grant and her team have been working in the field since early January, providing assessment, relief, and veterinary care for the animals in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. Working with locals and other animal protection groups, Grant and the Humane Society International team have brought veterinary care to some of these areas for the first time, particularly in Sri Lanka, where their groundbreaking efforts continue to ward off threats of dog culling.
Grant took a break from her field work to share her story at Expo, as well as talk to Animal Planet, which will broadcast her interview as part of Tsumani: Animal Instincts, a documentary set to air on April 23. The show will be dedicated to animal disaster efforts, and it features a segment on Humane Society International's disaster team.
"The biggest challenge was the living conditions and making sure the team was taken care of so they could...take care of animals in need. We were nine hours from all conveniences and medical supplies. It was like managing a self-contained military operation." Grant said. "If you missed something, you simply had to do without."
An Ever-Shifting Landscape in Sri Lanka
The HSI team members, which aside from Grant include veterinarians from The HSUS's RAVS program and rescue specialists from the National Disaster Animal Response Team, have spent weeks in Sri Lanka since the Indian Ocean tsunami struck, not only vaccinating and sterilizing hundreds of animals but also warding off a threat to control the homeless dog population (and its threat of rabies) with lethal methods. In the process, the team has converted many on the island nation to the humane treatment of domestic animals, even those animals who might pose a threat.
But an unexpected thing has happened on the way to winning over the hearts and minds of Sri Lankans: More dogs have come out of hiding.
In March, the public once again became nervous about the homeless pooches, many of them stray or abandoned dogs who have taken to fighting. Some residents were calling for a cull of the animals again, particularly since the spring breeding season could increase the homeless dog population.
That's the principal reason why HSI has decided to keep a presence in eastern Sri Lanka for the time being. Team members will continue to focus not only on rabies prevention, sterilization, and public education, but also on their efforts to work with local officials and veterinarians. The goal is to develop long-term vaccination and spay/neuter programs that will carry on HSI's efforts well into the future.
"For these methods to be truly effective, there needs to be continued program work and support from the local government and its people," says Neil Trent, executive director of Humane Society International. "Our goal is to create long-term vaccination and spay/neuter programs that the locals will continue after we've left the area."
And just as important, HSI's team is part of a coalition of local and international non-governmental organizations, veterinarians, and government officials who are coming together to discuss changes to Sri Lanka's 1907 animal protection laws.
In Close Quarters
On the eastern coast, the hardest hit area of Sri Lanka, around a half million people have been displaced. Many families have been forced to live together in refugee camps, along with their animals, mostly dogs. This situation has created a rather unnatural population of canines concentrated in one area. To make matters more complicated, many dogs previously in hiding have begun to appear in the camps after they discovered their former homes were nothing but rubble.
The dogs, hungry and lost, have begun to fight, the males often fighting over the females. This, understandably, has made refugee camp residents nervous, and some again have called for a culling program.
The idea of killing dogs in post-tsunami Sri Lanka is not new. The military and locals first threatened to cull the homeless canines after an infected dog was discovered on the island in the weeks after the tsunami. But groups such as the Yudisthira Foundation, with HSI's support, immediately began raising money for a spay/neuter and vaccination program for the refugee camps in Arugam Bay, Romari, and Tirrukkovil. These eastern areas, though hardest hit, have received relatively little support from humanitarian and governmental agencies. The Yudisthira field clinic, along with Sri Lankan and international veterinarians, have worked to stabilize the dog population and to appeal to the government for humane population management.
The new influx of dogs has now threatened to upset the delicate peace between eastern Sri Lankans and their growing population of homeless canines. To add even more urgency to the situation, many of the female dogs will soon come into season, meaning a possible explosion of puppies. If all of these females are not spayed in time, this will mean a huge increase in the dog population in the camps.
International relief teams, including HSI's, are working overtime to combat these twin threats. Field clinic veterinarians report that at just one refugee camp, 45 females have been sterilized. Field vets hope that they are able to prevent this increased overpopulation in time. So far HSI has sterilized around 1,600 dogs, but many have yet to be reached.
A Keen Interest in Animal Care
During her Expo presentation, Grant noted that while many Sri Lankans fear catching rabies from dogs, they also have a clear affection for the animals. "People involved in disasters care very much about their animals," Grant explained. "These animals are, in some cases, the only link to economic recovery and most certainly provide comfort." For some people, Grant added, their animals, whether companion or farm animal, were all they had left.
In Arragum Bay, people had never seen veterinary care, and they were very interested in it, even though they may not have access to medical care themselves, Grant said. Children got in on the action, too. Many of them were so excited about bringing a dog to the animal doctor, they would round up puppies, their own or any nearby, and bring them to the veterinarians.
The community's interest in veterinary care allowed the HSI team to address issues of basic animal care, such as the need to feed and water animals as well as the importance of vaccinating, spaying, and neutering.
What's more, Grant said that on the western side of the island, in Colombo, both the government and the people took a keen interest in veterinary care and humane methods of animal control. When Colombo's mayor, Prasanna Gunawardena, asked to see what the team members were up to, they set up a temporary field clinic in his front yard. The mayor witnessed a full day of vaccinations and sterilizations of community animals. Gunawardena was so impressed by the hard work, he asked for training for the municipality and minister of health on how to create an infrastructure of humane animal control and how to create effective spay/neuter programs.
Moving Forward
The Colombo mayor wasn't the only one interested in modern animal welfare. Before the tsunami hit, Sri Lankans were in the developmental stages of updating their 1907 animal welfare law, a task they had been pondering for some time. But because of the recent public interest in humane control of animals, supporters of the legislation recently moved one step closer to making these changes a reality.
In early March, the Law Commission of Sri Lanka hosted a workshop to review draft legislation; government officials, veterinarians, lawyers, and NGOs—HSI included—joined together to discuss the improvements needed for an effective animal welfare law in Sri Lanka.
As Sri Lanka looks to the future of animal welfare within its borders, so does HSI. Members of the HSI disaster relief team have already laid the groundwork for long-term animal care in the country, and improvements to the law will certainly help reinforce those efforts, HSI's Trent noted. But it will take more than a law to improve conditions for animals in Sri Lanka. It will take enforcement of the law as well as implementation of more humane programs, Trent said.
So far, the locals and other organizations have been eager to work with the international community to help animals. Locals have organized a group called the Tsunami Animal-People Coalition. This group, along with many local veterinarians, appealed to the international animal welfare community for humane solutions to the threat of rabies. The group has already launched an aggressive rabies vaccination campaign, and has been encouraged by experts to continue these programs and to move ahead with spay and neuter programs.
"The teamwork between animal welfare groups, and with the local people, has so far brought about an increased level of protection for Sri Lankan animals," Trent said. "But the fight is not over yet. We hope that our programs will continue to support these improvements, and work toward the increased overall conditions for stray dogs in Sri Lanka."
Stephanie Edwards is program assistant and web content manager for Humane Society International.
