Didim Today

What we do in Kusadasi and around: castration, medical care, emergency treatment and feeding, “Umut-Evi” is Turkish and means house of hope – a society which stands up for street animals in Turkey. We focus on castration to reduce the amount of street animals in the long term, especially to decrease the misery of puppies. Everybody is working on honorary capacity. That’s why we are relying on your donation – and we need your help in field work! The life of Turkish street animals is very hard. The dogs and cats are exposed to extreme heat or extreme cold, suffer from hunger and thirst, are being injured from other animals through fight to survive and are being chased, tortured and poisoned by human being.

Therefore we, the German-Turkish society for the prevention of cruelty to animals “TierInsel- Umut Evi e.V.”, active since 2004, committed ourselves to the protection of animals in Kusadasi at the west coast of Turkey and the surrounding communities. The catastrophic situation of the street animals and the merciless actions of many of the communities against street animals is a big problem in turkey. The methods they often use (for example poisoning, bringing the animals to far away places where they starve) are not accordable to the Turkish animal protection law and do not contribute to reduce the animal population. Castration is the key to success For this reason we stick up for our neuter & release program with the target to reduce the street animal population permanently.

Castration is the only way to improve the situation on site and to get the problem on control for the long term. A serious projection says that a cat and their littermates can get within seven years over 400.000 kittens and a dog and their littermates can get within six year over 67.000 puppies. Only if we neuter consistently and bring the animals back to their home district, we can improve the life of street animals. With the help of feeding places it is easier to catch the animals. Even shy animals can be neutered this way, even if it takes weeks of mouths until our helpers can catch them. Later on the neutered animals are still being fed on the same spot. To neuter the animals we bring them to our Turkish veterinary surgeon. We also pay for the castration of animals being brought from the community members or the tourists. Our experience showed us, if we would not neuter the pets of the community members, they would not be neuter and since they also live most of the time on the street they would still accrete.

The possibility we offer to the inhabitants to neuter their pets is being accepted more and more. Awareness training protects street animals. Once the animals are at the vet they are also being checked. Neutered animals get an ear mark so everybody can see, that those animals are neutered. Since we use this earmarks our workers notice, that the community members leave our neutered “clean animals” alone. In Turkey the fear of diseases that an animal could transfer is very high – therefore the strays are being hunted and killed. After the surgical suture is healed, that our field worker Angelika observed for several days if possible, the animals are taken back to their home places. Of course we would prefer to give each dog a loving home. However this is totally unrealistic – to be adopted in turkey you have to be a breed, a crossbreed from the street has no chance.

The same happens to thousand of cats that populate the streets. Especially the misery of kittens is omnipresent. Animals just skin and bones with injuries, inflamed eyes and running nose, are begging for food and water. Often, you can find dead or injured animals along the road. Emergencies need special care At our daily work we are often faced with emergencies that require immediate medical treatment, costly operation and following special treatment. After we take care of the animals we can`t bring them back on the street. In some cases, we have to take care of them for a longer period. Frequently this bring us to the limit of our financial and personal resources. Therefore we need donations and volunteers. Anyone can help: with donations or as a flight sponsor or as a field worker The work for the street animals requires o lot of money, time and personal commitment.

Anyone who cares of animals can contribute to this even with a very small part. For example we are dependent on food donation and flight sponsors who take the food,( of course for them free of charge) to turkey. This is the only way we can feed the animal frequently on their feeding places. Besides food we also need breeding milk for puppies and kittens, donations in kind such as blankets, suture material, deworming pills, etc. We need financial help to pay for the castration, for the medical care and for the emergencies. We need sponsors who pay a fixed amount of money every month so we can rely on this donation. In addition we are looking for people who can help us in catching stray animals, bring them to the vet and back to their home places.

Often we arrange a big castration campaign where we neuter three full days for example. As a volunteer you are not working by of course yourself but you are guided and supported by our staff on site. For this work it is important that you are mentally and physically resilient because you are confronted with great suffering, on the other hand the work with animals is a lot of fun.

If you can imagine to support our work in any way please contact us immediately or get more information at our homepage. Our contact details: Homepage: www.tierinsel-tuerkei.com, Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Tel./Fax: 0049 1803 55 186 90 68 Our banking arrangement for donations: VR-Bank Mittelhessen e.G., Kontonummer: 79993107, BLZ 513 900 00 and IBAN DE 30513900000079993107; Swift/Bic VBMHDE5F