“What you do makes a difference.
And you have to decide
what difference you want to make.”
– Jane Goodall –

Doing good together and showing empathy:
Powered by your affectionate solidarity

Dear friends of Pro Animale für Tiere in Not,

Today we are sending you a picture of Alibaba. You can see him as our Nilgün found him on the street on 28 October, completely exhausted and emaciated to the bone – just a hint of life.

Today he is safely in Nilgün’s care and is on the road to recovery.
Alibaba symbolises the countless dogs and cats in Turkey who are born on the streets into misery and a precarious and lost life.

In Alibaba’s and all his animal brothers and sisters’ names, we would like to give you a brief insight into our intensive, sustainable animal welfare work in Turkey and ask you to support us in solidarity with this vital work.

We have been working intensively for animals in need in Turkey every day since 1994!

We maintain the following four animal welfare facilities here

• our neutering and emergency clinic in Altinoluk
• our cat villa in Altinoluk
• Yasam Vadisi, our valley of life, in Burhaniye
• the donkey island Esek Adasi

Our incomparable Nilgün Varos, representing Pro Animale, manages these four facilities, where we provide a home and a secure life for a total of over 1,000 animals rescued from greatest need: 358 dogs, 201 cats, 209 donkeys, 22 horses, 90 sheep, 172 goats, 6 camels, 4 pigs and 29 chicken.

This figure does not include all the homeless street animals that we treat, operate and neuter on a daily basis in our spay and neuter clinic in Altinoluk as part of our highly successful Neuter-Release-and-Care-for programme.

Thanks to Nilgün our clinic in the city of Altinoluk has established itself as an animal welfare institution highly valued by the administration and the community. Whenever Nilgün needs help from the administration, the fire brigade, the militia or the police in rescuing seriously injured animals or in case of confiscation, they are willing to help in any way they can.

We can therefore be grateful and proud that our Neuter-Release-and-Care-for programme for street dogs is so well accepted that the dogs caught, neutered, vaccinated and ear-tagged by Nilgün and her team are released back to their previous places and can be looked after by us at a total of 18 feeding stations. We feed around 90 dogs and 400 cats there every day during the winter months – less during the summer months, as Altinoluk is a popular holiday destination. These animals are therefore under constant monitoring by Nilgün, they are also vaccinated annually – and what’s more: the citizens of Altinoluk are involved in the care. They also feed them and inform Nilgün in case they notice any signs of illness in one of the animals.

Nilgün knows all the dogs on the streets of Altinoluk. She immediately recognises if neighbouring communities have abandoned strange dogs or cats in Altinoluk – which happens very often. A dog that is taken to a new, unfamiliar area (and also to the territory of other dogs) shows an insecure behavior and, tragically, often becomes the victim of traffic accidents or confrontations with other dogs in their home territory.

Let’s keep in mind:

The life expectancy of a “normal” street dog in Turkey (which is not cared for in Altinoluk like “ours”are) is 2 years on average: 2 years of deprivation, marked by hunger and thirst, years of brutal destitution caused by parasitic diseases, infectious and viral diseases or sealed by death on the street. The life expectancy of a cat is much shorter. Very few kitten reach adulthood. They are carried off by viral diseases that spread like epidemics and often lead to blindness or severe organ damage. The painful destitution of countless kitten, agonising starvation and dying of thirst as a result of these diseases takes place unseen, off the streets and in hiding places and backyards.

This enormous suffering of street dogs and cats can only be counteracted on a large scale by intensive population control through neutering:
Life should not even begin where it is a lost one from the start.

Here we would like to illustrate the exponential growth rate of cats, which is also transferable to the reproduction rate of dogs.

Our team around Nilgün Varos has performed

1313 castrations of cats
369 neuterings of dogs
23 amputations
18 tumour operations and
106 accident operations

from 01 October 2022 to 30 September 2023 – i.e. within one year – in addition to caring for our animal protégés in our animal shelters.

The overall balance of our spay and neuter clinic from May 2008 to 12 October 2023 is as follows

30,454 neuterings of cats
7058 castrations of dogs
237 amputations
153 tumour operations and
2,298 accident operations

It’s a terrific result – and looking at the graph above you can quickly see HOW MUCH suffering has been prevented for unborn life as well as alleviated for the individually treated animal.

What we do here does make a difference. And this is only possible with your solidarity and help, dear friends.

The actual day-to-day struggle for the animals and against their suffering lies with our Nilgün Varos. What she and her team achieve every day cannot be honoured enough and deserves our extraordinary respect. For Nilgün and her team, their encounters with animals in need of rescue, either because they are seriously injured or seriously ill due to massive deprivation, are almost omnipresent. It is the look on the face of the frightened and badly affected animal that makes you shudder and is always deeply moving. Remaining resilient, focused and professional despite all dedication, not losing heart and engaging oneself with each individual, each suffering and each need anew, is truly a masterpiece – and Nilgün is an angel for the animals.

For us, Nilgün – with her unconditional and authentic dedication to animals – is an icon of animal welfare. It is always a miracle to see what unique healing successes she and her team can achieve, as in their hands animals even in a hopeless state find their way back to life.

We would now like to show you some impressions of our work in Turkey in a few videos:

We believe that all of you, dear friends of Pro Animale, will agree with us, that we must not ignore the plight of animals in need of protection. And we hope that you will continue to stand with us in solidarity with our fellow creatures – the animals.

Together we can mobilise unique forces and achieve wonderful things!

Become an ambassador for Pro Animale Animal Life and help us to secure the future of our work for animals.

As a ♥Giving Tuesday gift♥ for our animals, we would like to ask you from the bottom of our hearts for your active support for our work in Turkey. You can make a difference that means the world to animals like Alibaba.