ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005

First animal shelters open in Iraq and Iran

TEHRAN, BAGHDAD—If humane societies are imagined as a chain of beacons, illuminating their surroundings and spreading the word, two new points of light just ignited.

“We recently opened the first Iranian shelter for dogs in Kooshkezar, and the first for cats in Karadj. Both cities are suburbs of Tehran,” wrote Center for Animal Lovers founder Fatemeh Motamedi, “After my husband Sirous provided us with land, the efforts of dedicated volunteers have made possible building the shelters,” which actually are to function mostly as out-patient hospitals for street dogs and feral cats.

The Center for Animal Lovers’ plan is “to provide care for sick and injured cats and dogs, and also take in strays, sterilize them, give them a health check, then release them to safe public areas,” Motamedi wrote. “Unfortunately adoption programs are not socially popular enough yet,” for adoption promotion to be part of the regular routine.

“At this point,” Motamedi continued, “our team consists of two Iranian veterinarians and 18 volunteers, most of whom are university students.”

The Iraqi Society for Animal Welfare formed in mid-2003, shortly after the fall of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Among the cofounders was veterinarian Farah Murrani, who helped care for the animals at the Baghdad Zoo after nearby fighting stopped in May 2003.

Now doing an internship at the Chyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Murrani told ANIMAL PEOPLE that ISAW activities so far have included providing care to homeless dogs and cats at Al-Zawra Park in Baghdad and opposing the use of poison for animal control.

Working with the Humane Centre for Animal Welfare in Jordan and Military Mascots, founded by Bonnie Buckley in Merrimac, Massachusetts, ISAW has also helped U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq to send about 40 adopted pets home via Jordan and/or Kuwait, Murrani said.

U.S. Army veterinarians have been helping to train the Iraqi staff in small-incision, high-speed dog and cat sterilization, so that ISAW can assist local neuter/return work.

Future efforts, Murrani pledged, will include public education about proper care of pets, working animals, and livestock; organizing vaccination clinics to combat rabies, leishmaniasis, and screwworm; pursuing the passage of animal welfare laws; and protecting endangered species.

A feeding program for 13 Iraq Interior Ministry police dogs also recently started with U.S. humane community help. The impetus came when U.S. Army Reserve Captain Gabriella Cook, of Henderson, Nevada, now stationed in Iraq, on December 28, 2004 e-mailed to the Las Vegas Review Journal and other people in the Las Vegas area that “The dogs are starving and urgently need dry dog food. Some have already died,” Cook said. “Half are sick. We have no way of buying actual dog food here.”

Las Vegas sports handicapper Wayne Allen Root donated $5,000 to help the dogs via the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society, whose president, Judith Ruiz, began seeking a way to fly pallets of dog food to Iraq.

Staff of Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), and Representative Shelley Berkley (D-Nevada) meanwhile announced on January 7, 2005 that Hill’s Pet Nutrition of Topeka, Kansas, “has arranged for a continuous complimentary supply of its Science Diet product to be made available” to feed the dogs, wrote Keith Rogers of the Review-Journal.

Root then asked the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society to use his donation to help Las Vegas-area dogs and cats, Ruiz told Rogers.