Mannar Donkey Appeal “Project Donkey”
Donkeys in Sri Lanka ?
Ask people to name wild animals in Sri Lanka & most would say elephants, monkeys or even leopards
However during our recent outreach program in Mannar , Northern Sri lanka to work at a spay neuter clinic for dogs and cats we discovered Mannar Island is also home to approx. 1000 wild donkeys , introduced to Sri Lanka by Arabian merchants hundreds of years previously and now totally feral.
Mannar is not an area familiar to most tourists or visitors to Sri Lanka , Mannar Island is over 300 km North of the Capital Colombo and was cut off completely for many years due to the recently ended 25 year civil war
Whilst many Donkeys in the rural areas appear to be healthy recent census data shows at least 350 live in the urban area of Mannar Town and many of these are in very poor condition , eating roadside rubbish and suffering injuries from & causing road traffic accidents.
Dogstar’s team have committed to help these poor animals
But it’s a huge task , the donkeys are not tame or working animals and cannot be easily touched. We will need to devise a system to catch and treat them .There is not a short-term fix as we need to raise funds , carry out an assessment and create a long-term plan based on expert advice and local knowledge and work with local and international partners, Diaspora Lanka and the urban council.
Plans and progress
Dogstars team have already started fundraising and have been working offline to secure the relevant permissions required to work with and help the Mannar Donkeys. Our friends at World Veterinary Service are seeking volunteers with specialist equine background to join us and our local and international partners to carry out the all important initial assessment which will allow us to formulate a long-term sustainable program to improve the Donkeys welfare.
How you can help
Please donate what you can to help via our Just Giving Mannar Donkey Appeal , donations can be made by supporters worldwide via credit , debit cards and Paypal.
As well as donations we will need volunteer vets with Equine experience and people with experience in handling feral donkeys , please contact donkeys@dogstarfoundation.com for further details if you can help in any way.
Please share our donkey appeal via social media and with friends and family, the more people who know about and support our work the more we can do to help these donkeys
Thank you for reading and thank you for caring about the Donkeys in Mannar Sri Lanka ,
Samantha Green
Operations Director Dogstar Foundation
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