A Day with IPAN

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By Project Consultant Veterinarian Dr. Michael W. Fox

Like the long-running T.V. series "Mash," Deanna runs a 24-hour animal triage hospital. A typical day begins at 7:00 a.m. with local staff being instructed and supervised to care for close to 200 animals. Currently, these animals include over 60 donkeys, over 100 cattle and calves, and 14 dogs, plus anywhere from five to ten inpatient animals being held in recovery.

Project Consultant Dr. Michael W. Fox vaccinates a village dog against rabies.

No day is ever the same. Being prepared for the unexpected is the modus operandi: no kerosene available; power's out; two of the local staff of five don't turn up (one sick, one had a relative die); the promised "absolutely most definitely" truck load of fodder hadn't been delivered the previous evening. So someone will have to take the one and only vehicle to find out, since there's no telephone communication. This means that follow-up treatments of various animals in the surrounding villages will be delayed, we will probably miss lunch again, have dinner around ten, and turn in close to midnight.

This starving village pup was picked up for treatment at IPAN's refuge.

One day when I was working at the Sanctuary in September 1997, the day began with a woman at the gate with a goat that had been mauled by dholes or wild dogs. While I was stitching up the goat, there was a phone message that a rabid dog was on the loose creating havoc in the village of Moyar. As I was finishing treating the goat, four men of the "Honey Bee" Karumba tribe arrived. They had walked twenty miles to have someone from IPAN come and save a cow trying to give birth to a calf. We had them wait until field assistant Nigel Otter returned in the jeep from doing follow-up calls on animals we had treated earlier. He was always late returning because there were always new cases to see. Later I delivered the calf, who was stillborn, but at least I had saved the cow.

Sick, injured and abandoned calves and cows are taken in by IPAN.

No day is more exhausting than another, treating animals infested with maggots and mange, weakened by starvation, injured by predators and careless drivers, and harmed by desperate and primitive treatments that people have adopted because no effective veterinary services or education in basic animal husbandry have ever been provided before. IPAN is changing all of this, and I found hope in the sheer number of treatments that animals received and were made well -- over 2,500 in the past year.

Anti-rabies vaccinations and treatments for mange have been provided to over 700 dogs. More could be done, but typically a 2-day rabies vaccination clinic for one village can take several days to complete because of other crises: a pony hit by a truck; a cow mauled by a panther; a monkey bitten by dogs; a rabid dog in a distant village that's biting every animal and person it can reach and no one can catch it or dare get close.

This starving, mange-afflicted street puppy was saved by IPAN.

The primary economy of rural India is still based on animal draft power, manure, and milk, yet cattle received no adequate veterinary care in the Nilgiris until IPAN was established.

As IPAN, under the direction of Deanna Krantz, continues to provide veterinary services and humane education so vital to the health and welfare of community animals, local interest and support is being built up to make the Project more self-sustaining and locally managed. IPAN's spay-neuter program, widely accepted by the villagers, is already making a difference.

There is no other place in India like IPAN's Animal Refuge where there is land exclusively designated for the care and welfare of domestic animals in the heart of one of the richest wildlife regions in India, and in one of the most culturally and biologically diverse places on Earth.

IPAN Director Deanna Krantz with rescued puppies at the refuge. The animals were neutered and given veterinary attention and permanent sanctuary through IPAN.

The suffering of animals is intimately linked with the marginalization and poverty of indigenous peoples. Likewise the loss of cultural and biological diversity is linked with the exploitation and ultimate extinction of tribal cultures and unique wild plant and animal species and communities.

Addressing these linkages are part of IPAN, and already the unprecedented local political and social consequences are being felt, and reported in India's national free press. But what impressed me most of all, and affirmed the importance of IPAN, was seeing how sick animals, once provided proper treatment and care, responded; and how the villagers, especially the children, expressed their joy and wonder when these recovered animals greeted us with such obvious gratitude and love whenever we came into their villages.