Video Update from the Clinic
11 December 2022We've completed our video about the sterilisation clinic over on YouTube and would love to show you how it all went. <3
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🐱 Help the Street Cats of Lake Toba! (Sumatra, Indonesia) 🐱
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Fundraiser Completed - Thank You So Much
8 December 2022We're all done! Thanks to your generous donations, we have reached our target amount and have enough money to pay our bills in full.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support for this sterilisation clinic. On day one, we quickly realised the demand for this service was far more than anticipated, and we decided to go ahead and do as many surgeries as possible, even if it meant exceeding our budget.
We feel so grateful for all the generous donations that allow us to pay the incredible team at Cita Vet immediately for their hard work, as well as the other minor costs (transportation, food and cages) associated with the clinic.
Here is the breakdown of how everything went during the two-day clinic:
ANIMALS SPAYED/NEUTERED
Male Cats x 26
Female Cats x 22
Male Dogs x 2
Female Dogs x 3
TOTAL ANIMALS: 53
This number was easily reached by just chatting with a handful of people, which is very promising for future clinics.
Anita from Toba Animal Friends commented that this welcoming and positive attitude to sterilisations was quite a big change from previous clinics she has done over the last 5 years in Indonesia.
She is witnessing a change in attitude in general to animal welfare and population control, which is reflected in the wonderful local people who brought these animals along for sterilisation.
Many commented that they were desperate for something like this and would love to support more clinics in the future.
Some people were already caring for half a dozen cats and at their wit's end regarding what to do next. We even met a woman who had 14 living in her home!
Needless to say, they were extremely relieved to be able to sterilise at least some of their cats.
We offered sterilisations for free, but those who were able to did make donations where possible, which we really appreciated.
Overall, the clinic ran smoothly, but as always, there are lessons to be learned. Next time, we hope to be able to run the clinic for a bit longer to give the vets more time to get through all the animals.
We had really wanted to offer treatment for some of the animals affected by scabies in the village but just didn’t have the time to send a vet around to give injections.
We’ll also need more cages so we can do larger groups of cats at one time, and a bit more assistance with transportation to get the animals to and from the clinics (Agung and Uncle Bond were working overtime on the one motorbike!)
Regardless, it was a fantastic two days and an excellent start to what we hope will be an ongoing joint effort for animal welfare here in Tuk Tuk (and eventually, further afield).
Exploring Sumatra (Carly and Agung) along with Toba Animal Friends would like to thank the following people here in Tuk Tuk:
• Uncle Bond from Lake Toba Cats Garden for his neverending positivity and hard work. His local knowledge and contacts enabled us to reach many people and felines over the two days. We couldn’t have done it without him.
• Kak Rohana for allowing us to use her place as the location for her clinic. She supplied us with food and coffee and was there for moral and practical support the entire time. Terima kasih.
• Katie, Ali and Mario from Mario’s Apartments for free accommodation for our vet team – and also being there to give practical support and catch up the neighbourhood strays.
• Annette and the team from Tabo Cottages for providing us with a delicious dinner on the first night.
• The team from Cita vets for working so hard and taking such wonderful care of all the fur babies we met. The vet team were always smiling and upbeat, even at 10 pm when animals were still coming through the door!
And of course, none of this would be possible without every single donation from you lovely people. Many of you may not even have heard of our little village, but you believed in us and the work we’re trying to do – and that means the world to everyone involved, as well as the community here on Samosir Island.
We know that one clinic won’t change the world, but it has changed the world for many families here and more than 50 animals.
Cats here in Sumatra typically get pregnant 4x a year with an average of 5 babies. Let’s conservatively assume that every male we neutered only impregnates one female every four months (it’s likely far more than that!) Those immediate numbers mean we’ve prevented nearly 1000 cats from entering the feral population here in the village within the next year – and that’s not even counting the kittens of that next generation who would also produce a few thousand more!
That wraps it up for us. We will be posting a video summarising the clinic and introducing those involved on YouTube soon which I will post here and over on our Facebook page, so stay tuned if you’re interested in seeing it all in action.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ExploringSumatra
Terima kasih, mauliate, thank you again for your support.
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Just a little further!
8 December 2022Big update in the works, but the clinic is done and we doubled our target number of animals sterilised!
Because of the huge response from the community here, we didn't want to turn anyone away, so kept on performing surgeries until we ran out of time.
As such, we are JUST short of our target. With other funds donated in person or online, we only need $200 more to be able to pay all the bills associated with this clinic.
So, we've extended the deadline by another week to do one last little push.
The clinic was AMAZING and we can't wait to fill you in on the details later this week.
Thanks so much for everyone who donated - your money has made all the difference over here.
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Clinic Day One - 40 cats, 2 dogs!
4 December 2022A quick update before we head in for day two! Amazing response from the local community.
The day started with 28 cats lined up waiting for their turn to be sterilised! Most of them had owners, who were VERY relieved and thankful for a chance to stop the endless stream of kittens in their homes. We were able to grab quite a few strays as well, with the help of lovely Uncle Bond (the Lake Toba Cat Man).
Because we had SO many people coming with their cats, we continued the clinic until 11pm just to get through as many as possible.
The amazing vet team even squeezed in 2 dogs before retiring for the night.
Anita from Toba Animal Friends has been working with animal welfare in Sumatra for many years and commented how different the attitude towards sterilisation is now than it was five years ago.
So, we're off for day two, which we expect will be just as busy! We decided that we will just sterilise as many cats as we can get our hands on, and deal with the bill when the time comes.
Photos and details to come when it's all over!
Thanks so much for your donations - they are making such a difference to the local community here, and preventing literally thousands of kittens from entering the feral populations in the next year!
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