Donkey sanctuary in Hurghada, Egypt

In the Egyptian tourist destination, Hurghada, tourists can chalk up a great success: they were irritated at the whipped and badly kept working donkeys in the streets of Hurghada and kept protesting. The government is now reacting to these complaints and no longer tolerates donkeys in the city centre. The donkeys are simply taken away from the workers who come into the city centre with their donkey carts. These donkeys find refuge appropriate to their species in the desert animal shelter of the Bluemoon Animal Centre, where they are nursed back to health and their wounds are treated.

The unneutered male donkeys had to be kept separately until last December, and the animal centre quickly reached the limits of its capacity for keeping them separately. As a reaction to this, we had a vet in our team on our last local training campaign in December 2009. She instructed the local vet and animal carers in how to keep and treat donkeys. On this mission, the donkeys in the animal centre were neutered and can therefore be kept in herds today; the teeth were rasped to a level surface, tear ducts were rinsed out, etc. In future, the Egyptian animal centre’s vet will be able to do all this independently. This is desperately needed because, due to the new situation, a donkey sanctuary is developing in the desert animal shelter – and there is a lot of work to be done there for experts who know how to deal with these animals. The vet who accompanied us, Dr. Michelle Jackson, drew a pleasant conclusion at the end of this hard working week: “It is wonderful to see that very different people can cooperate this well – the local team as well as the SUST operation team got on perfectly well and worked hard. Everyone has the same goal: the animals’ well-being.“

Further training at the desert animal shelter

The SUST team was accompanied by a hoof practitioner on its working visit to the desert animal shelter in March 2010. While the team of vets was busy with preparing for neutering and other operations, and with examinations, treatment and taking blood samples from dogs, cats and rabbits, the hoof practitioner treated the hoofs of every single donkey at the animal shelter. At the same time, he trained the staff members in the important and complex field of hoof care and donkey husbandry.

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