Hello everybody,
We just had our last working day for this 2 month period on Santa Cruz! During this periode we heard rumors about problems with animal welfare on Floreana, another island here in Galapagos. So we went to Bioseguridad, the local government authority, to talk about this. They told us that on Floreana there are 100 people and 66 animals. These animals have never seen a veterinarian! And the amount of animals is increasing rapidly, which causes problems for the animals, the people and the environment.
We offered our service and made an inventory of equipment we would need to set up a temporary field clinic. Tomorrow we will have another meeting about this small program. If everything goes right we will be going to Floreana next week together with a veterinarian of Bioseguridad to do a spaying and neutering program and provide basic veterinary care!
We are really curious how the circumstances are there. Here on Santa Cruz most people take relatively good care of their animals even if they don´t have enough money. Although other people think of an animal as an object, which you can just treat any way you want. However over the last 2 months we have tried to change their minds!
Lets see what we can do to help out the animals and people of Floreana! We will keep you updated!
(Taken from Tjarda Reints Bok and Jochem Lastdrager’s blog, Travelling Animal Doctors)