BHUBANESWAR: Amid lockdown, stray animals in and around the city are going hungry. Though some volunteers are doing their bit, mass awareness and empathy are the need of the hour to provide minimum food to the animals.
With tourist sites, restaurants, temples, institutions and hotels shut, the starving animals have shown signs of hostility.
Animal right activists demand that civic authorities should encourage people to feed animals in their localities.
“The civic body can incentivise locals to ensure that outside each household there’s some food and water being kept for the strays,” said Triman Sehgal, an activist from Rasulgarh area.
Volunteers of Speak for Animals launched their ‘hunger-free Bhubaneswar’ mission on March 23. “We received permissions for movement of five vehicles from the State Government to feed stray animals. We are going to the nearby villages to procure food.
"It’s a time-taking task and also people don’t understand the importance of feeding animals,” said Kushal Biswas of Speak for Animals.Volunteers from other groups or individual activists have adopted similar initiatives.
But shortage of funds, social stigma and unavailability of resources can hit such efforts.
Earlier, Animal Welfare Board of India had written to Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories urging them to enlist ‘feed and fodder for large animals and food for companion and stray animals’ as essential service.
“It is requested to kindly issue necessary direction to all concerned authorities to create awareness amongst the public to take care of stray animals during the lockdown due to COVID-19,” the letter read.
A few other organisations like People for Animals and Dhyan Foundation too are doing all possible for the survival of stray animals in and around Bhubaneswar and monkeys in Khandagiri and Udayagiri caves.
As all food sources are closed due to lockdown and tourists not visiting the sites, monkeys in Khandagiri are starving without food, said Jiban Ballav Das of People for Animals.
They organisations fear that if adequate steps are not taken by the Government mass deaths of animals cannot be ruled out.
Meanwhile, pet owners in the City are worried about availability of animal food as all pet shops have put their shutters down. Most of these shops don’t have the staff strength to facilitate doorstep delivery of pet food or other supplements.
The State Government has also not listed pet shops as ‘essential service.’ Activists have raised concerns that pets inside locked shops may die if not fed by the owners.In such a scenario, animal dieticians urged pet parents to provide home-cooked food to animals. But pet parents claim that some butchers are keeping their shops closed due to misinformation, despite being allowed to operate by the authorities.
“You can add nutritional supplement along with home-cooked vegetarian food to the diet of dogs or cats. Give them paneer, ‘chenna’, kidney beans and peas. Feed them pureed vegetables so that it is easy for them to digest the cellulose,” said pet nutritionist, Aakarschika Narayan Mishra.Meanwhile, for any health emergency of pets, the Saheed Nagar Veterinary clinic along Maharshi College Road is kept open 24x7 with veterinarians working in shifts.
What’s missing
Animal feed has not been listed as essential service by the Centre’s guidelines issued after the 21-day lockdown order. Odisha Government’s order is not clear on it either. This would lead to animals suffering and even death because summer has onset and three weeks would be a long time if scarcity arises.