The Emergency Grant to KSPCA
Our Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant to the Kenya Society for the Protection & Care of Animals was used for the
Repair of the Donkey Holding Facility at KSPCA Naivasha.
This facility is critically important to the Kenya Emergency Donkey Rescue Programme, which fights the illegal slaughter trade. The KSPCA takes donkeys rescued from illegal slaughter to KSPCA Naivasha for initial assessment and treatment before moving them to foster homes as the legal process to enable their permanent re-homing continues.
The KSPCA Naivasha facility was meant to hold up to 100 donkeys. When they donkeys are there, they are often sick, injured, very old, or starving. Donkeys can be very destructive, and the facility needed repairs. The AKI grant came to the rescue of the KSPCA and the donkeys.
The holding facility and support structures before the repairs:
By the end of September 2024, the KSPCA was ready to begin repairs. But then they received a suspected rabid donkey rescued from a nearby county, and another donkey with tetanus rescued with others from illegal slaughter. The rabies patient was placed in quarantine and succumbed by 10 October. The tetanus patient survived after treatment.
As directed by vets, the whole quarantine area (old stables, photo 1 above) had to be disinfected and couldn't hold any donkeys until the end of October. Meanwhile, other sick donkeys had to be admitted and they were placed in the stable area. It was impossible to begin renovations until the prolonged monitoring of sick donkeys, their recovery, and placement with fosters was completed. And then, it wasn't until the resident vet in Nairobi visited the Naivasha shelter in the last week of October and approved further activity at the quarantine area that the KSPCA was able to resume implementation of the project.
Finally, in November, AKI grant renovations at the Naivasha shelter could begin. The project consisted of:
· Replacing the old stable metal sheets, using them to cover the new feed store, and reinforcing the perimeter
· Reinforcing the fences
· Constructing feeding troughs
· Painting, plastering the inside of the stone walls built round the new stables, and some plumbing works to connect drinking troughs with water at designated points.
The holding facility and support structures after the repairs:
Thanks to these renovations, the KSPCA could again rescue donkeys and bring them to the Naivasha shelter. In November, they recovered 203 donkeys from two separate operations on illegal slaughter. At the facility they, like all recovered donkeys, received critical curative and preventive health care, including teeth and feet care and vaccinations, good food, and behavioral assessment before proceeding to greener pastures (foster homes).
Kenya Emergency Donkey Rescue Programme
Our grant project contributed to a broader effort, the Kenya Emergency Donkey Rescue Programme, which is part of an effort of allied organizations to end the illegal slaughter of donkeys, to disrupt the organized criminal trade, and to support the prosecution of offenders.
Already, this program is having an impact on those who sell to illegal slaughter and those who perpetrate it.
In 2023, KSPCA rescued over 500 donkeys from illegal bush slaughter and serious abuse. In early 2024 they secured a criminal conviction for perpetrators of cruelty against donkeys in Mwea County, the first such prosecution in living memory!
