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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

OCTOBER 2005

Bucharest animal shelter flooded

Flooding at the Fundatia Daisy Hope in Bucharest (Aura Maratas)

 

BUCHAREST––Four times the average rainfall for the entire month of September hit Bucharest, Romania, in only 72 hours on September 20-22, flooding animal shelters including the Asociatia Natura and Fundatia Daisy Hope, featured in the June 2004 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE.


Also flooded was the Fundatia Speranta, one of only four shelters, three of them in Romania, that ever received a zero on the 100-point ANIMAL PEOPLE scoring scale [“How ANIMAL PEOPLE evaluates shelters,” June 2004.]


“I have four areas under a half meter of water,” Daisy Hope founder Aura Maratas e-mailed on September 20. “I lifted the cages up on pallets. I have no place to move them, and have nowhere to drain the water. We could not find a pump. They are all gone from the shops, and everyone needs a pump.”


Daisy Hope did not lose any dogs to high water during the three-day ordeal, but a worker quit after suffering a severe bite from a frightened dog.

 

“We have problems with our generator,” Asociatia Natura founder Carmen Milobendzchi e-mailed. “Our drainage system is flooded. Our cattery walls absorbed water from the saturated soil, and water is in the basement. The animals are well, but not happy because the nights are too cold.


“Because we are not complaining and begging,” she added, “many people think that we don’t need help, but it is difficult for us to handle everything.”


Reportedly under an eviction order since May 2005, the Fundatia Speranta “finally received permission from the mayor on September 21 to move the 1,200 resident dogs to their new home,” Vier Pfoten Romania reported on October 7. However, heavy rain delayed the relocation into October.


“Our medical team is trying to vaccinate and neuter, if necessary, all the dogs as soon as possible,” Vier Pfoten reported.


About 275 dogs were moved by October 4, but “From mid-October onwards, the area will be evacuated by force and the dogs will be killed,” Vier Pfoten said.


The National Committee for the Protection of Animals, with 200 dogs, was also at imminent risk of flooding, but through September 27 remained safe, said Maratas.


The NCPA had a bad weekend anyway, after trying to promote adoptions with posters showing Adolph Hitler, former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceau-sescu, and U.S. President George Bush holding their dogs, above the slogan, “A dog loves you just the way you are.” The ad agency that distributed the posters removed them, wrote London Telegraph correspondent Michael Leidig, after the U.S. embassy objected.


Contact info:


Fundatia Daisy Hope, 12 Visarion Str., sector 1, Bucharest, Romania; phone 40-21-3127723; email <aura.maratas@ doghope.ro>.
Asociatia Natura, 9 Imparatul Traian Str., bldg.B9/1, ap.19, sector 4, Bucharest, Romania; phone 40-744673379; email <milo@b.astral.ro>.