For three consecutive days animal welfare volunteers kept sailing to the small uninhabited island to rescue lives. More than 50 cats, a couple of dogs and even a goat baby were abandoned on the island without proper care, food and water. In the middle of summer, in July.
Starving, thirsty and sick animals were dumped under the merciless sun of the Greek summer.
Why and how all these animals were found trapped there it is not known. Somebody brought them there with a boat. Apparently again and again.
Was it one person doing it again and again? Animal owners who had found it ‘comfortable’ to deposit their pets there after they got tired of them? Nobody knows and will probably never find out.
A local rescuer informed the animal welfare society SCARS about the animals on the “Hell Island.”
Where, who and how is not the question here. Main thing is the animals were removed from the hell on earth.
What animal rescuers found on the island was heartbreaking.
Dogs in chains
Dogs dying in the middle of nowhere.
New born kittens dying in a dirty bucket
An orphan little goat.
A metal water bowl chewed by the dogs struggling to suck the last drop of life.
“It doesn’t matter how we ended up there. And it doesn’t even matter where the there is,” write animal welfare Second Chance Animals Rescue Society S.C.A.R.S. on their Facebook page.
“For us, the need to help knows no boundaries and neither does the pain we experiences with the things we witness. As long as a single soul is saved…just a single one…”
This little boat sailed several times per day between the island and the mainland transporting volunteers, equipment, food and animals, alive or not.
Coming and going, coming and going until all animals were released from the hell on earth and brought to safety.
For three days the rescuers struggled to relief the animals from their endless pain.
For some of the poor animals, the help came too late.
For dog Dias freedom lasted just a few hours. Help came too late for the old body tortured by tumors and fleas.
This little guy from the bucket kittens died a few days after he was rescued.
All rescued animal went to the vet for health check, treatment where needed and sterilization.
Eyes can speak thousands words: Dog Liberty tries to tell the vet of the tormented life she spent on the island.
At the end of the mass rescue operation, 53 cats were sterilized, with the majority of them set free in places where they can find food and water on a daily basis.
Goat Hendrix enjoyed the couch with his foster mom and tried to forget the days he spent with tied legs often inside a plastic container.
He was bottle-fed and even learned to walk on a leash.
Meanwhile, he has been adopted!
Dog Liberty feels safe and loved maybe for the first time in her life.
Liberty still has several health issues like tumors in her breasts and under her tongue. The vets fear she may not survive multiple surgeries. She had few remaining teeth removed, she was tested positive for leishmania and is under treatment.
Liberty wants to forget every single minute she spent on the island prison, tied on a collapsing cabin and chewing the metal bowl.
Pipa, the second kitten from the bucket, is growing and looks confident towards the future in the safe environment of the animal welfare.
Floyd feels healthy, safe and loved. The days he spent on a chain are gone forever.
If you want to make a donation to SCARS for all the animals they rescued, click here, SCARS.gr website – also in English.
All pictures are from SCARS.gr Page on Facebook.
The project “Rescue Animals from Inferno Island” was materialized with the help of German animal Welfare “Frieden Für Pfoten” (Peace 4 Paws).
The rescue operation took place beginning of July 2018, the rescuers published the story on September 12.
PS I wouldn’t be surprised if locals found the idea to dump their unwanted pets and no sterilized cats on the island and some local fisherman or boat owner was assigned to execute this shameful practice in secret.
And I don’t want to imagine how many animals are dumped on other small and uninhabited Greek islands…
