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IFAW Mobile Clinic Launch
(Oct 2002) The Yudisthira Bali Street Dog and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Mobile Clinic launch scheduled for November 3 was postponed until February 2003 due to the Bali Bomb October 12, 2002. Plans included the unveiling of the IFAW Mobile Clinic during the opening ceremony at the Bali International Women's Association's (BIWA) Holiday Bazaar, Bali’s largest community gala event. Dignitaries from the Ministry of Tourism were slated to attend along with other high-ranking community members.
The IFAW Mobile Clinic was donated to the Yudisthira – Bali Street Dog Foundation and will be the cornerstone of our Street Dog Program. With the IFAW Mobile Clinic the Yudisthira team of Veterinarians and technicians can work the streets and beaches in Bali 6 days per week. The Street Program was the first campaign launched 4 years ago and has treated disadvantaged, homeless street dogs for their wounds, parasites, illness and provided 1,000’s of much needed spay and neuters.
As part of providing a well-rounded campaign for Street Program a business-to-business marketing plan is being developed whereby hotels, restaurants and tourist destination business’s work together with Yudisthira and IFAW to solve dog problems and issues related to stray dogs. This will include recommendations for garbage management, food sources and managing tourists who want to feed table scraps to the dogs.
Fundraising efforts have been targeted at tourism developing campaigns with off shore tour agents and the hotels, restaurants, business’s and IFAW Mobile Clinic in Bali. Unfortunately, these plans will experience set back as tourism has dropped to 4% in Bali. This fact in itself has huge ramifications for the dogs in Bali and animal welfare as a whole. Since tourism has stopped so have all of the generous table scraps that the beach and street dogs depend on for daily meals. When food supply disappears the dogs will expand or abandon their territory in search of food. The garbage heaps from the hotels and restaurants will not be laden with hundreds of kilos of scraps and dogs will become aggressive to protect the few territories that have food supplies. They will start tearing wounds into each other whilst fighting to survive on a meager existence. Malnourished females will have malnourished puppies with weakened immune systems. The ravages of this combination are apparent on the puppies as early as 4-6 weeks of age.
Also with the economic decline due to tourism abruptly halting many middle class people will no longer have the few extra dollars to spend because in many cases they are loosing their jobs in the tourism industry. Many who have pets will most likely eliminate veterinary care in order to put gas in the car. This will impact financially the already fledgling industry of Veterinary Medicine. Many people won't be able to afford the extra mouth to feed and thus the dogs will be forced to the street to look for other sources of food.
Thus Bali Bomb affects even the street dogs. More now than ever we need to be aware of Bali's animal welfare. The IFAW Mobil Clinic arrived at a time where it will be greatly (used, appreciated) serving Bali’s street dogs with the expert street smarts of Yudisthira – Bali Street Dog Foundation
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