"People themselves have nothing to do." Animal shelters were left without help

Since April 1, the self -isolation mode has been operating in Karelia: shopping centers, restaurants, schools, kindergartens, public transport are not working. In quarantine, without familiar help were left -handed shelters. The correspondent of the North. Realia found out that the Karelian zoostaters, due to a lack of money, have to sell kitchen utensils and go online, and it became difficult for volunteers to help animals.

On the afternoon of April 12, a car with a trailer drove up to one of the hostels of Petrozavodsk: several men unloaded a wooden booth with a dog on a leash from it and left. Residents of neighboring houses immediately called the zoopeters from the Petrozavodsk Road Home Shelter: it turned out that there were five puppies in the booth with the mongrel.

“It was clear how the dog was bad,” recalls the volunteer Alexander Sukhov . - She just lay on the ground and "cried." When we announced a collection of assistance, we didn’t count on anything: all overexposure in the city is filled, but mom and children need a spacious aviary! But money began to come to the phone every minute. Translations of 50, 80 rubles - they are the most valuable, people gave the last.

Now an abandoned dog with puppies - she was called Una - she was temporarily taken to themselves by caring people. Those Petrozavodsk people who saw the owners who left her wrote a statement to the police about the brutal handling of animals.

Many tied this case with the coronavirus epidemic: fakes appeared on the Internet that animals can be carriers of the disease. In Krasnoyarsk, because of this, people began to throw dogs and cats out into the street. But in Karelia, according to zoo defenders, this is a constant phenomenon.

“There are people who, as they threw animals, will continue to do this,” says the zoo defender Anna Ershova . - They do not need any virus for this.

In Petrozavodsk today there are three shelters for homeless animals: one of them, "devoted hearts" , is 40 kilometers from the city in the village of Padozero. It was founded two years ago Anastasia Sadovnikova and Nadezhda Andrianova , for construction they took a loan at the bank. There are almost no donations for the last month, they complain.

- People themselves have nothing to mention dogs. In addition, after the prohibition of intercity transport, the shelter to the neighboring villages has to go to work on foot: eight kilometers one way, ”says Anastasia Sadovnikova. - There is no strength left for work. If it will continue to happen, you will have to close the shelter.

"Constantly beg the money"

Galina Kuzmina , a volunteer of the Petrozavodsky shelter " Road Home ", live three dogs and a cat in the apartment. In total, Galina’s curators - she pays for paid overexposure and food - 15 dogs. The zoo defender has official work, but now Kuzmina is compliance with self -isolation, and there is catastrophically not enough money for the maintenance of wards. In mid -April, she even posted VKontakte an announcement about the sale of her old service in order to help out at least a little money.

In addition to the fees for overexposure, it is necessary for techniques, medicines, feed, X -ray, ultrasound, vaccinations

“Several animals got sick on my curation,” she says. - In addition to the fees for overexposure, you need a lot of funds for tricks, medicines, expensive special feeds, trips to Peter to Vetclinic, X -rays, ultrasound, vaccinations and more. The list can be continued endlessly.

People stopped visiting animals, and this is the main problem on quarantine, says Anna Aktanko's road home, the head of the road home. They have 64 dogs in the shelter.

- Volunteers walked with dogs. And now the whole load has been on the shoulders of the shelter workers, and they do not have enough hands. One or two people are difficult to pay attention to everyone, ”she says.

In the shelter " faithful friend " of the city of Segezhi, which is located almost 300 kilometers from Petrozavodsk, now there are also about 60 dogs. The animals and order are followed by two workers, one of them is the founder of the shelter Evgeny Isakov . She has a family, two children. One day you have to spend an hour only to travel around all city stores and find cereal for animals cheaper.

“We have two more volunteers, but by age they are at risk, so they don’t leave the house,” says Eugene. - Of course, we used to live like on a powder barrel - it happened that only five thousand rubles were transferred to us per month, and at least the maintenance of the shelter was 50 thousand. We constantly beg money: we take on credit from friends, district businessmen. There is no help from the local authorities! True, shortly before quarantine, an ecological council appeared in the area. They planned meetings: they wanted to call us, social activists, representatives of the authorities and the Segezhsky Central Bank ... But then, because of the coronavirus, the meeting was canceled, they forgot about us again.

The other day, two puppies were thrown into the shelter - who did this, in the "faithful friend" do not know. “You explain to people that well, we don’t cope, we don’t need to,” Eugene worries. “And many have such a logic: you are a shelter, you are obliged.”

Online zoois protection

The zoo guards from the " First Petrozavodsk Shelter " in the crisis had to come up with an alternative assistance collection, says their head Vladimir Rybalko . For example, people on quarantine can now become online otornuns of any inhabitants of the shelter-it has 120 dogs and 70 cats.

“The weekly cost of maintaining one cat in a shelter is 500 rubles,” Rybalko explains. - A person sends the amount, and we in response send photographs and videos with his ward, plus a special certificate that he is the guardian of this animal. A person feels his involvement, this is important.

Previously, the shelter held exhibitions-distributions and other public actions, thanks to which it was possible to collect money or animal food. Now this method of income is cut off - and everything can only become worse.

“One of these meetings was planned at the end of April - of course, everything canceled,” Rybalko says. - In a word, these are the short -term consequences of the epidemic that we have already felt on ourselves. But it will be much worse from long -term consequences. People will fall income, and we will suffer too. Well, people will not have money for charity. And then further sterilization of animals is in question: now we have a program of preferential operations from the Fididized Hearts Foundation. Thanks to her in a couple of years in Karelia, more than three thousand dogs managed to sterilize.

Vladimir Rybalko hopes that the fund will be able to resist the crisis. Since it is not known how for a long time he will drag on, the zoo guards are now trying to accumulate money for the future.

- If difficult times come, it will be necessary to reconsider the diet of animals. For example, buy cheaper products, says Rybalko. - We will not be able to close. But we will have to not take the animals in a shelter.