The Coastal Animal Rescue and Education Network is taking its animal saving show on the road.
The Network was launched in Tofino in 2012 and has been providing veterinary services along with caring for stray animals through its shelter facility and foster network, finding lost pets and even rescuing wild animals through a committed volunteer team ever since. It recently launched a mobile vet clinic, dubbed Mission Pawsible, to deliver veterinary services, including vaccinations and spay and neuter surgeries across the Island’s drastically underserved rural and remote communities in an 18’ enclosed trailer.
“Our full-time vet and vet tech are driving down logging roads with our mobile clinic and surgery unit to take vet services where, in some cases, they have never been before,” CARE co-founder James Rodgers said through a media release announcing the new program.
“Without regular access to basic veterinary services, many remote communities grapple with having too many unwanted dogs and cats which leads to animal suffering and community health and safety issues like dog pack fights, dog bite incidents, disease spread and increased human/wildlife conflict potential as wolves, bears and cougars prey on sick and injured cats and dogs.”
Dr. MacKenzie Drake, who led Ucluelet’s Stray Cats About Town program before receiving the Pacific Rim Foundation’s Dick Close scholarship and attending vet school in New Zealand, is the mobile clinic’s lead veterinarian and is being assisted by one vet tech.
Rodgers told the Westerly News the new program is being funded entirely from donations and he hopes enough support comes in to add more members to the team.
“We are still trying to build the donor base to make it all possible,” he said. “We are looking to add a third person, but to do that we’re going to have to get some more funding. There’s very few grant opportunities out there and this project just hasn’t quite fit into what is there. So, it really comes down to trying to get some grassroots support for this project.”
He suggested the Mission Pawsible mobile clinic is the first of its kind in B.C. and he was elated with how fast the CARE Network was able to get it up and running.
“It seemed to be record time. It was six-seven months from concept to being operational…It really comes down to the demand and the need for this service being so big that we had to come up with a big solution,” he said.
“This is B.C.’s first…I can’t tell you why it took a small organization like the CARE Network at the end of the road to be the first, but it is what it is. Not only are we going to bring these services to the region that we’re based in, but also to other regions that need it.”
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the shortage of veterinary services in rural and remote communities.
“Not only was CARE having trouble accessing affordable and available services, as all the residents of rural and remote communities are used to I suppose, but so were our partner organizations,” he said. “What we were finding was those rescues were also having the same challenges getting their animals into vets for spays and neuters and other treatments. In order to alleviate their bottlenecks, which were our bottlenecks by extension, we needed to look at this mobile vet service to answer all those challenges.”
He noted CARE has organized several spay and neuter clinics on the West Coast over the past decade, but those volunteer-led events are too few and far between to tackle the issue of overpopulation effectively.
“It really creates a peaks and valleys kind of situation when it comes to the dog and cat populations. A big clinic will get the population under control for a little bit, but then the team can’t come back for a while and typically the numbers go up again,” he said. “The idea here is that we’ll have a smaller team that can come in more regularly and kind of smooth out those peaks and valleys and be a more sustaining force in getting the animal populations to a level that’s more manageable.”
Rodgers was speaking to the Westerly News from Kyuqout where the mobile vet clinic was delivering services and said networking across the Island is vital to solving the collective crisis.
“It’s very important, but it often feels like you’re bailing out a sinking boat. The water’s just constantly coming in and you’re bailing as fast as you can,” he said. “We really believe that adding the access to services like spay and neuter surgeries in the rural and remote communities will help slow the flow of unwanted litters of kittens and puppies and again hopefully proactively address some of the issues that rescues and shelters face as we reduce the suffering of these animals.”
He added that when the team is not in those communities they’re at rescues and shelters to help with “the backlog of spays and neuters needed.”
“They’re kept very busy full-time. It’s a massive undertaking, very scary, but so needed and we’re just hoping to get the word out there to really drum up as much support as we can,” he said. “We’re looking for creative ways to get some funding in the door so we can do more spay and neuter surgeries in the places that they’re needed.”
Information about how to donate as well as sponsorship opportunities can be found at www.carenetwork.ca.
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