Interesting article- and it mentions the question, is it wrong to spend time on animals, when humans are suffering? It's a good question (with no easy, or "right" answer, imo)
Thousands of Animals Rescued in Zimbabwe
Sat Jan 17, 5:30 AM ET
By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press Writer
PRETORIA, South Africa - Ruling party militants chased the puppy's owners from their farm in Zimbabwe, then turned on the Labrador mix, gouging out its eyes.
AP Photo
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Bloodied and wounded, the puppy wandered the bush for days before volunteers rescued the dog and airlifted it to safety in neighboring South Africa.
The dog, Batty, is one of some 3,000 pets evacuated to South Africa after being abandoned amid Zimbabwe's chaotic seizure of white-owned farms over the past three years.
More than half the rescued animals have been reunited with their owners, while the rest have found new homes in South Africa.
"Many of the farmers and their families have lost everything, so it means a lot to be reunited with their pets," said Fiona Manuel, a volunteer at Wetnose Animal Rescue, a shelter that takes in the abandoned animals.
Zimbabwe's government has confiscated at least 5,000 white-owned farms, devastating the agriculture sector in a country already in turmoil from political unrest and the economic policies of President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe defends the practice of seizing the farms for redistribution to impoverished blacks, saying the land is being returned to its rightful owners.
At the Wetnose shelter, in the South African capital of Pretoria, volunteers deal with a little-known result of the program: the abandonment of thousands of animals.
Many animals, including dogs, cats, hamsters, rabbits, geese, swans, horses and cattle have been slaughtered. Others are cruelly treated: One rescued dog had acid poured over its coat.
"I don't understand how there can be this cruelty," Manuel said. "Perhaps it is to spite the owners, knowing how much they love their animals."
Batty, who was renamed by the veterinarian who cleaned and stitched his wounds in Zimbabwe before he reached Pretoria, was left permanently blind. The whereabouts of its owners, whose farm was seized a year ago, are unknown.
"Some say it's cruel to keep a blind dog, but we don't put down blind people, do we?" said Pippa Nairn, who adopted the dog and took it home to Cape Town.
Nine months after its rescue, the dog is wary of strangers and becomes agitated by noise.
But it has found a companion and guide in Fudge, Nairn's 2-year-old Alsatian mix.
"It has worked extremely well. They are inseparable, they are ideal companions," she said.
Animal activists work discreetly in Zimbabwe for fear of retribution by ruling party militants.
British Airways flies the rescued animals to South Africa at no charge. They are dewormed, inoculated and sterilized at the nonprofit Wetnose center.
The numbers arriving in Pretoria have started to decline now that most white farmers have fled the country, Manuel said.
Many have been reunited with their families who moved to South Africa. When a shipment of 90 animals arrived last year, the owners of 22 of them were there to welcome them.
"The owners waiting here were in tears when we drove in," Manuel said.
Nairn, who runs a taxi business in Cape Town, rejects criticism that the time and money spent rescuing pets could be better spent alleviating human suffering in the deeply impoverished country.
"Cruelty to animals shows a person has no heart, no soul," she said. |
