Facing unprecedented stress, Israelis struggling to care for their pets are overwhelming animal rescue groups, whose funds are drying up without visitors. But rescues continue
Israel's animal rescue organizations have come under exceptional stress since the start of war with Iran on Friday. More Israelis are dumping their pets, none are showing up to adopt any and income is vanishing, they report.
Animal welfare associations are perennially stressed to begin with, but wartime tends to be worse as people fleeing attacks lose or abandon pets, and as animals frightened by alerts, sirens and blasts run away. The war between Israel and Iran is arguably characterized by conflict and stress at a level new to Israelis, and by a spike in animals in trouble, according to animal rescue volunteers.
All the societies Haaretz spoke with report a significant increase in calls from people asking to bring over their pet because they just can't take care of them anymore. Others call in hope of pet hostelry services, which are generally not on offer. (There are some pet hotels in Israel.)
"On Friday morning, we learned that we are in another war," says Yael Arkin, the CEO of the Let the Animals Live organization, told Haaretz by phone. "On Sunday morning, when our hotline opened up, suddenly instead of people calling about animals needing medical help –a lot of calls were people trying to get rid of their pets. Calls like that always happen, but we suddenly realized there were more, a lot more – people trying to dump dogs and cats and even a rabbit."
