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Welcome to the India Campaign!

June 01, 2007, 12:0AM MT

By Sharon St. Joan

Get to know India's animals!

By Sharon St. Joan, Best Friends Network

Please join the India Community

Street dogs and cats, wild mongoose, venomous cobras! Huge, endangered mammals like elephants, lions, tigers, bears! Farm animals such as cows and goats! 1200 species of birds, like rose-ringed parakeets, black kites, white-backed vultures, barn owls, and 408 species of reptiles!

The Indian subcontinent is one of the greatest treasure houses of biodiversity in the world.

The India Community will be dedicating the entire month of June to the India Campaign!

If you live in India or if you are originally from India, this is a time to form or to renew connections with Indian people who are helping animals.

If you are not from India, this will be your chance to take a virtual tour of this fascinating land to meet the animals there and those who care for them.

Beginning a friendship

It was during the time of the tsunami, in early 2005, that Best Friends began to form a real connection with some of the animal groups in India. (Our thanks especially to Animal People who graciously shared with us friendships built up over several years, when we were asking how Best Friends could best help the animals suffering in the wake of the tsunami).

You will recall that the tsunami was one of the greatest natural disasters of all time, killing perhaps 200,000 people and obliterating entire coastlines, along with the villages, the people, the farmland, the animals--in some places, everything was swept clean. Many of you were profoundly generous during that time in extending a helping hand to those who were helping the animals, in India, and in other countries as well.

As soon as we began to contact the various animal groups who were helping out during the tsunami, we soon realized that we were dealing with some very exceptional people--real heroes!

Pradeep Nath and his team at Visakha SPCA, dropped everything as soon as the disaster occurred and began to travel along the beach, rescuing every animal they could find, untying tethered goats, cows, and donkeys, so that they could find food and water.

Kartick Satyanarayan of Wildlife SOS and Geeta Seshamani of Friendicoes, left Delhi, far inland from the coast, and traveled across India to patrol the beaches, helping desperate animals. Later, they stayed several months in the Andaman Islands, working non-stop helping dogs and providing food to 1200 cattle, whose pasturelands had been utterly devastated. In fact much of the islands were now underwater!

Dr. Chinny Krishna, the Director of Blue Cross, the first of the modern-style animal shelters in India, and also the largest, with well over a thousand animals, threw open their doors to make room at their shelter for countless more creatures, who had lost their homes and their people and had no where else to turn.

During these times, two years ago, we watched in awe as these people, dropped everything to spend weeks on end, their only thought being to help as many animals as possible in those desperate circumstances.

Visiting India at last

Early this year, in January, six of us from Best Friends traveled to India to attend the Asia for Animals Conference, which was being held in Chennai (formerly Madras) in the far south of India. Seeing India firsthand was an amazing and overwhelming experience--especially meeting and spending time with the people and organizations that we felt we already knew well.

In addition to these four groups, there was a fifth group whom we visited, CUPA (Compassion Unlimited Plus Action), located in Bangalore, far removed from the coast that was struck by the tsunami, but right in the middle of a great many animal issues. Suparna Ganguly, and her eight colleagues who make up the Board of CUPA, have created one of the most highly respected shelters in India.

In visiting CUPA, we soon realized that Suparna, all the time that she was extending the most gracious hospitality imaginable, was still also always rescuing animals. Her mobile phone never left her hand--as she handled dozens of cases--all the time--fifty rabbits at a market--an elephant who needed rescue from an abusive situation at a temple --a terrible situation in which the city was killing dogs. Suparna never stopped thinking and planning for better lives for the animals.

She and some of the other trustees of CUPA have also spent much of the past two years crisscrossing India in the four directions, undertaking a major study of the population of captive elephants in India, of several thousand. No comparable study has been done before, and this research is much needed to lay the groundwork for improving the truly terrible conditions in which the captive Indian elephants often live--despite the outward façade of their painted foreheads and their colorful finery.

The India Campaign for the month of June

We'd like to tell you about the work that is being done now! There are so many successes! In the city of Visakhapatnam, on the east coast, there is no more torturing of snakes during religious festivals! Also no more poaching of sea turtles on the beach by the city! In Bangalore, several elephants have been saved so that they can remain at home in India--and not be sent away to lead miserable lives in foreign zoos. The program for dancing bears has liberated over 300 bears and freed their "owners" to learn new vocations!

Every day this month, we will feature a fascinating aspect of India--so that you can meet the people, the animals, and understand the circumstances and the issues!

The magnitude of a greater crisis

We'd like to be able to say that in this past two years since the tsunami that there is no more need for help in India, that everything has improved. That life has settled down; all is peaceful, and gently moving forwards in terms of progress towards greater wellbeing for the animals on the Indian subcontinent.

But that would not be true! Even though today we no longer see the great destructive waves crashing on the shores; nonetheless, there is a crisis of a much greater magnitude looming on several fronts for the animals--no less a crisis because it is a quieter crisis and not always in the news.

A treasure house of biodiversity

India teems with life. Incredible flowering plants, amazing rare butterflies, over four hundred species of reptiles, exotic birds, and some of the most majestic of the earth's creatures: tigers, lions, elephants, rhinos.

The animal groups in India are courageously fighting a battle on behalf of these animals, who are under assault--not just from global warming--but from the exotic wildlife trade, poaching and smuggling on an unimaginable scale which siphon's away India's (and all of Asia's) wildlife. Every one of these animal organizations is on the front line and actively fighting against the removing of India's wildlife out of India, where they may be taken to die or suffer in captivity in far away places.

While all this is happening there is yet another struggle taking place as well, which came to a point early this year, as hundreds of healthy street dogs, who had lived their lives for years in the cities of India, especially Bangalore, were being slaughtered, for no good reason, other than an irrational fear of dog bites and rabies. It has been shown beyond any doubt the spaying/neutering and vaccinations are the only way to control the animal population--not killing the dogs!

It is urgent and essential that the animals of India win the battle for better treatment and better lives--for their own sake as individuals, and because whatever happens with India's animals may set the stage for the future of all the world's animals. India with its vast population of humans --and so many species of animals-- is a pivotal country. They need our help.

Come along for a journey through the enchanted land of India!

We invite you to come along with us on this incredible journey, during this month, to get to know these amazing people and to gain an understanding of how they are fighting every day for the animals of India.

This India Campaign will last for the month of June, from June 1 through June 30. We hope that you will feel moved to help with a donation; if so, please look for the donation button on the side.

100% of donations made will go directly to help animals in India and will be divided equally among these five groups: CUPA, Blue Cross of India, Visakha SPCA, Wildlife SOS and Friendicoes. These are the groups that Best Friends knows well. As they so graciously hosted us during our visit to India, we were able to see firsthand, with great admiration, the incredible work that they do for the animals.

The first $10,000 raised during this campaign will be matched by Best Friends!

A special word for all other India animal rescue groups, and for everyone

There are hundreds of animal organizations in India! Did you know that India is one of the few countries in the world where animals are specifically protected in the Constitution?

Many of you we do already know, as organizations and individuals and we hope soon to know you all well! Please join the India Community. Please write to us, introduce yourselves, send stories, post comments, and participate in this community--so that we can all work together to help India's animals!

Please check back every day in June for a new story on our virtual visit to India!

To give to these animals who need our help, please go to the International Rescue Fund: India:

https://www.bestfriends.org/donate/india.cfm

Or go to the donation window; look in the coumn to your right!
Thank you!

Photo: Amy Hogg / Man with a goat in the fish market at Vishakhapatnam

Comments

Posted June 01, 2007, 12:1PM by PamelaB

What a rich and informative introduction to June in India! It's a really wonderful background--people, animals, actions--to the stories that will come every day this month. I'm really eager for this virtual working vacation!

Posted June 01, 2007, 12:19PM by sandyp

With a life-long exposure and interest in India, its people, animals and natural history, I rejoice at reading Sharon's beautiful article on the important work going on in India to save and improve the life of its precious and magnificent animals. The people of India have always had a close relationship with the natural world, and animals have been an integral part of their culture, religion and daily life there as far back as Indian history records. Few places on earth can claim such a reverence for all life as exhibited in so much of India's past - and present! Imagine animals being protected in the Constitution! India stands as a fine example for us all in this regard. It is just marvelous to know that we here at Best Friends are a part of India's fine efforts towards impoved welfare for all animals, working with the incredible organizations that abound in that special country. Keep on keeping on, Sharon! Wonderful!!! And thank you.

Posted June 01, 2007, 3:0PM by michelle

We all want to help India's people and animals. The rich history of this mysterious country and their contributions through generations play a part in of all lives in some ways.

The animals need our attention and support.... the people deserve our respect.

Posted June 04, 2007, 1:46PM by PamelaB

A whole month in India--what an exciting prospect! If it's anything like the splendid reports from the field by Best Friends staff last January, we are in for a veritable feast--animals, people, and lots of local color. Plus those tantalizing extras--information, knowledge, and wisdom.

Read reports from the field by BF staff in India for the Asia for Animals Conference:

http://network.bestfriends.org/Blogs/Detail.aspx?b=918&g=3e131eff8a084002968805adf7b48385

Posted June 25, 2007, 12:4AM by MaiaDrayton

It is amazing what is being done for the animals
of India.

Congratulations for all of you out there,who are
truly heroes.
Maia