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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: April 2007
Succeeding in Galapagos, Animal Balance takes s/n to the Dominican
SAN FRANCISCO-- Moving
to the Dominican Republic with her personal pets in February 2007, planning
to start surgeries in March, Animal Balance founder Emma Clifford hopes
that lessons learned in introducing dog and cat sterilization to the Galapagos
Islands off Ecuador, human population 30,000, can be applied in a Caribbean
island nation of more than nine million.
"I think we'll be the first to do
a focused spay/neuter campaign in the Dominican," Clifford told ANIMAL
PEOPLE. "We are targeting villages across the northern coast, starting
in Cabrera. We will work with the local vets and the national veterinary
school. As the Dominican Republic is the place for baseball," where
more people of all ages play than anywhere else in the world, "we
have been collecting used baseball gloves, and will be giving them out
as incentives for people to get their animals sterilized, along with the
collars and leashes. St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has joined
us and lent his name to the project to help gain interest," with
credibility on animal issues earned as cofounder with his wife Elaine
of Tony La Russa's Animal Foundation.
"We are also thinking of holding
dog training classes at the local baseball stadium," Clifford said,
a tactic remembered from her years at the San Francisco SPCA.
"I am going to coordinate Animal
Balance from the Dominican," Clifford said, "and Alice Ng will
handle the U.S. office from San Francisco. We will keep working in the
Galapagos," Clifford affirmed. "We are four years into the work
in the Galapagos now. We are confident that we have exceeded 70% of the
dog and cat population sterilized on San Cristobal and Isabela islands,
and are very close to reaching it on Santa Cruz.
"Santa Cruz has the largest population
of people, cats, and dogs," Clifford said, "plus we see a more
transient human population and more cruel treatment of animals there.
However, we are persevering, and expect to hit 70% there this year. I'd
say we are at around 68% by now. We are in the tricky phase of handing
over the project to the municipality," Clifford added. "Santa
Cruz is a tricky place to work, but we are keeping under the political
wire, and the mayor supports us."
Turning sterilization programs over to
host communities, after teaching how to run them, is central to the Animal
Balance philosophy. "We didn't even take a U.S. vet on our most recent
Galapagos visit," Clifford said. "We used four Ecuadoran vets,
and our Animal Balance folks helped. It was great to see the Ecuadoran
vets take the lead and organize everything. They know that they need to
reach 70%," to stabilize the dog and cat populations, "and then
we'll help with top-up campaigns [to maintain 70%] in the future.
"At this point," Clifford said,
"if we don't visit each island on our campaigns, the island we don't
go to is offended, so now each time we do tri-island campaigns, hard core
spay/neuter on Santa Cruz and top-ups and cheerleading on the other two.
"The big issue is the smuggled purebreds now," Clifford noted. "On the one hand, people are taking great care of their pets but on the other, they are making money from selling puppies.