Ever since Typhoon Haiyan, the worst storm on record to ever make landfall, devastated the central regions of the Philippines, NFA’s disaster response team has been working long hours to get aid to the neediest animals.
When natural disasters strike animals are often left with no access to food or clean water and become much more susceptible to disease, so it is vital to get food and veterinary help to them until the overall situation stabilizes and their owners are able to care for them.
To date our team has focused most of their time on northern Cebu and the island of Bantayan, which is just to the west of the northern tip of Cebu. The level of destruction on Bantayan was greater than Cebu, so they intend to return there on a regular basis. The aid required was much the same as the other areas – dog food, mange treatment, deworming, minor wound disinfection etc. We’ve handed out close to 2 tons of dog food so far and plan to dispense a lot more in the coming days.
The most recent few days saw our team partnering with volunteer vets from World Vets, a US based charity that focuses on disaster relief and vet training and aid in developing world countries, to treat cattle, water buffaloes, and goats.
Looking to the future, we know that it is going to take several months for the typhoon ravaged areas to get back on their feet, so we are working with the authorities to plan our long term aid strategy. For the time being, we will continue to dispense food and veterinary care in northern Cebu, but will also start planning for our team to head to the islands of Leyte and Samar nearby.
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