This weeks blog is a change from the usual and covers a topic very close to our heart – animal welfare in the Seychelles.
As massive animal lovers, the team at Le Nautique Seychelles have strived to do our bit for local animal welfare since arriving in the Seychelles, rescuing sick and abandoned strays and working closely with both the Seychelles Animal Welfare Society (SAWS) and SSPCA.
Our first encounter with the Seychelles Animal Welfare Society (SAWS) was back in January 2016 when we heard that they were completing a sterelisation campaign on La Digue and looking for volunteers and donations. The strays of La Digue have always been close to our heart and we jumped at the chance to help, donating over 1000 latex gloves to the cause and doing our bit to spread the world across social media.
Amazingly over 90 owned and stray animals were treated in La Digue over a two day period, with a wonderful team or local vets and volunteers and even specialist vets from the Hermanus Animal Hospital in South Africa, all donating their time and effort and not to mention much needed medical goods.
Soon after the sterelisation campaign, you may remember that we met poor little Marley, a sad and sickly little puppy living rough on the construction site of the future SSPCA animal shelter (still under construction). Marley was a sweet natured boy, covered in mange and sores and looking for a helping hand. We quickly scooped him up, rushed him to the local vet for treatment and passed him onto SAWS for care and adoption. Little did we know that a few months later this cheeky little chap would win the heart of SAWS member Ellie and be adopted into her beautiful pack.
Here’s Marley before…
and just look at him now…
It’s a dogs life!
Next we rescued little Rio, a blue eyed, fluffy pup, cast away and dumped in a box on the golf course. Who could throw such a cute little thing away? Needless to say he our melted hearts and came home for a much needed flea bath, feed, comfy bed and lots of cuddles. He was then taken in by SAWS and soon adopted out to a loving local family. Another great success story.
2016 saw SAWS amazingly adopted out over 50 cats and 70 dogs and all with no official shelter and surviving on very little donations. Jump forward to 2017 and things have certainly changed. SAWS now have a temporary shelter, office, dedicated employees, a mass of volunteers and are a driving force in the successful push for change in the outdated animal legislation here in Seychelles – AMAZING!
January 2017 also saw the Hermanus Animal Hospital team back in the Seychelles to tackle another sterelisation campaign, this time on the islands of Praslin and Mahe where they spayed and neutered a massive 263 animals and further saw and treated another 320 animals.
The team at Le Nautique Seychelles were honoured to have been able to assist in the Mahe sterelisation campaign last Saturday, picking up pups from around the island, mucking out carriers and giving lots of love, attention and cuddles to the post op patients. I was also very excited to play assistant to Dr Marc Walton in the operating theatre and watching the sterelisations first hand (not for the faint hearted which is why Stuart stayed outside). We even got to see little (not so little) Rio again.. MELT!
It was an amazing experience and we were just in awe of the hard work and dedication of the entire team (SAWS, volunteers, nurses and vets alike). This is why we wanted to share their amazing work with you today and hopefully shine some more light on the importance of these not-for-profit animal organisations here in the Seychelles.
Le Nautique Seychelles will continue to support animal welfare in the Seychelles and hope that others will follow suit. Should you wish to support and donate to these wonderful organisations please do not hesitate to contact us and we will pass on their details.
Thanks for reading and thanks again to both the Seychelles Animal Welfare Society, SSPCA and Pet Haven Society for all your hard work.
