News
Ethiopia: Helping the dogs and then the wildlife
June 06, 2008, 9:2PM MT
By sharonstjoan
ethiopia helping the dogs and then the wildlife
Dr. Anteneh Roba sets his sights on help for all Ethiopian animals
By Sharon St. Joan, Best Friends Network
On Friday, May 16, Dr. Anteneh Roba, who saved the four Gido Cave dogs from Ethiopia, arrived to visit Best Friends for the first time. As you may have read on the Best Friends News,
http://news.bestfriends.org/index.cfm?page=news&mode=entry&entry=12CD1C39-19B9-B9D5-9DC44294291400D5
Hana and Haley traveled with Dr. Anteneh to keep him company and to spend some time at Best Friends, going to something like "finishing school" with Sherry Woodard, one of Best Friends dog behavior experts. Over the next few weeks, Sherry will help the two dogs polish up their manners a bit before they go on to new homes.
It's not surprising that their manners need a little polishing, since, as you may also have read, they were rescued from a cave--a big pit that they'd been thrown into in Ethiopia, known as the Gido Cave, so they became known as the Gido Cave dogs. There were four of them--the only four dogs to survive the horrible fate of being thrown into this cave. They were rescued in a complex rescue mission arranged by Dr. Anteneh, and carried out by HAPS, an animal rescue organization in Ethiopia. After the rescue of the four dogs, Dr. Anteneh made sure that the Gido Cave was sealed forever so that no more dogs could be thrown into it.
Not only did Dr. Anteneh arrange for the rescue of the four dogs, but when they didn't immediately find homes in Ethiopia, he brought them back to the U.S., to Houston, Texas, where he works in a hospital as an emergency room doctor.
Of the four dogs, Maria has already found a good home. Tommy has some medical problems and is receiving treatment in Houston.
Hana, and Haley, as mentioned, need a little help with their manners. They're settling in very well at Best Friends and seem to be having a great time!
750,000 street dogs!
Of course the four cave dogs were not the only dogs in Ethiopia having difficulties. There is a major street dog population in Addis Ababa, estimated at around 750,000. Best Friends' Gregory Castle traveled there in January, where Dr. Anteneh, HAPS, and he met with Government officials to work out a plan to get the dogs spayed, neutered and vaccinated. The government representatives seemed happy to realize that there was a good, viable alternative to killing the dogs.
Best Friends is committed to working on this project and to helping to bring about a positive situation for the dogs in Ethiopia.
Through his Foundation, the Aamsale Gessesse Memorial Foundation, Dr. Anteneh has helped children as well as animals. He has donated urgently-needed incubators to a hospital in Ethiopia, which will save the lives of newborns.
When we had a chance to talk during his visit, he made the comment that it became always more clear to him that "Our lives gain meaning not through what we acquire, but through what we give." A profound thought.
The wild creatures of Ethiopia
As well as caring about children and domestic animals, Dr. Anteneh has a very keen interest in the wildlife of Ethiopia. He describes Ethiopia as a remarkable country, where "many of the animals exist nowhere else on earth, and sadly they are going extinct."
Dr. Anteneh, an Ethiopian-American, has made many trips to the protected nature reserves of Ethiopia and has talked with the wardens whose job it is to care for the rare animals that live there. In a country where the economy is suffering, there are not enough resources to care adequately for the parks.
Sometimes outside the gates of the national parks he would see four or five trucks, unusable because their tires had blown out and there were no funds to buy new tires. There is no money for operational expenses--like transportation or hiring park rangers to combat poaching. In the parks, there is generally no electricity after 6PM.
Sadly, nomads--tribal people--move into the parks and settle there. They have nowhere to live, but they cause great destruction to the habitat and to the animals in the parks. Funds for employing park rangers are urgently needed, so that they can patrol the perimeters of the parks.
To make matters worse, the population of Ethiopia has skyrocketed in recent years from 25 million people in the fifties to 77 million now--all causing greater pressure on the nature reserves.
Undaunted by the magnitude of the challenges ahead, Dr. Anteneh, while working on the vast problem of the street dogs in Addis Ababa, is beginning to give some thought to how to stave off the threats to wildlife. Eco-tourism, if done correctly, may be a major aspect of the way forward.
Waiting to be saved is a strikingly beautiful and varied land. In the Awash area is a thundering waterfall--nearby can be heard lions and crocodiles. In the Bale National Forest there are monkeys found nowhere else on earth, as well as the endangered Wallia Ibex, a kind of wild goat. Only a few hundred Ethiopian wolves remain, and the Born Free Foundation in the U.K. has a program to protect them. Likewise, only a few hundred Swayne's Hartebeests survive--saved almost single-handedly by one of the Ethiopian wildlife officers, who sacrifices his own comfort by living in a cabin in the wilderness and who talks to the local people about the importance of protecting the animals. During his tenure there, the population of Swayne's Hartebeests has climbed back from the brink--from a low of 150 to 450--whether they can ultimately be saved is not known yet.
If all these animals can be saved, it will be thanks to the dedication of Dr. Anteneh and other Ethiopians who value the lives of all the animals of their country--from the dogs to the wild creatures. We wish them well.
What you can do
Dr. Anteneh has created a new blog, "Ethiopian Animals" :
http://network.bestfriends.org/Blogs/Detail.aspx?b=1983&g=1ab1ab37dd654d36b15aff4357c7b0ff
Gregory Castle's blog entries begin here:
http://network.bestfriends.org/international/news/21951.html
This is the website for the foundation that Dr. Anteneh created, the Aamsale Gessesse Memorial Foundation:
http://www.amsalefoundation.org/index.html
To view a photo of Ethiopian wildlife on Art International, please go to:
http://network.bestfriends.org/artinternational/news/25382.html