“During the wartime, we evacuated about fifty lions from Ukraine!”

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the animal protection organization UAnimals has been rescuing animals from the frontline territories, treating them and transporting them abroad, or finding them new owners in Ukraine. A team of about fifty volunteers have saved hundreds of animals: dogs, bears, and lions.

Journalists from Inter TV channel recorded an interview with animal protection activist Olha Chevganiuk and shared it with the Museum.

We at UAnimals have been saving animals all the time, and there are so many concrete stories that touch our hearts very deeply. We save homeless animals, pets, and wild animals. I am ready to share some of the stories that we remember the most, probably.

One of the stories is a story of a Labrador called Sensei. Many people saw the photographs that appeared after the liberation of Kyiv region. Among them was one very emotional photo showing a Labrador dog lying against the background of the destroyed Irpin town, and its owner seemingly touching the dog. Many people then thought it was a story of a touching encounter, but in fact, it was not. The owner abandoned this dog, and the pet was left without care. What makes this situation even sadder is that the dog is actually very sick. It has a heart disease, a tumour in the stomach, and the dog’s paws are paralysed.

Well, basically, UAnimals engaged in giving it some help, and we began to collect donations for this dog. The good news is that we were able to get the dog back on its paws, and it was able to walk again. We found some new owners who were ready to take such a troublesome pet, take care of it, and take responsibility.

One of these stories is also about a Labrador dog, who came to be with our military. In fact, the military told us that there was a case when the dog growled very much, demonstrated some emotions and tried to drive the soldiers away from a place. After all, they listened to the dog and retreated to the area nearby, while a shell landed on the place they left. Was it a miracle, was it some kind of dog intuition, or what was it? Obviously, we do not know for sure, but the fact remains. These are some real-life stories told by our military first-hand. Unfortunately, some misery befell this dog later, as it was injured. The dog was treated in the hospital. After that, it returned to the soldiers, but then died during another shelling attack.

During the war, during all this time, we took many such animals abroad.

Unfortunately, it turns out that there are a lot of wild animals, such as lions, for example, kept in private hands. Literally yesterday, we evacuated a lioness from Kharkiv. Now, here is what the story looked like the day before yesterday. We got a message informing us that there is a lioness staying on some territory, behind the fence, just somewhere in Kharkiv. The animal jumped over there by herself. That is, this was not some special secure and closed territory. The lioness was just walking around there. A police officer contacted us, and we gave him some guidance and advice, told him how to act better, and what to do. It was a very challenging moment, as we had to admit that the police officers… Unfortunately, they do not understand or feel animals the way we, the UAnimals team, do.

Natalia Popova is a team member who is responsible for the rescue of wild animals in our team. She tried to understand the age of the animal, and her weight, just interacting by phone. The idea being, for example, to put the animal somewhere in a safe place, where there is no threat to her and where she is not a threat to people. To do this, certain drugs needed to be injected in order to settle the lioness down into a sleep for some time. Then she could be placed somewhere, and we could further decide how to take her out, and establish whom the animal belonged to. It was quite risky, because the police officers said that she was an adult lioness weighing about 100 kilograms. They gave her those drugs. Luckily, everything is fine now, but when we saw this lioness with our own eyes, we realized that this was a young lioness. She is actually a year old. So… but we could not but do that. Surely, we worried very much about her health, so that everything would be fine. It all had a happy conclusion. The team headed off as soon as they learned about her.

I immediately went to Kharkiv with the necessary equipment, and with the necessary people accompanying them. Fortunately, they managed to put her in our special vehicle and transport her to the shelter. Near Kyiv, we have a so-called shelter for wild animals, where a whole team watches the animals in order to provide them with the best possible conditions and care after evacuation.

We once evacuated a bear. That bear lived in Zakarpattia for many years, or rather in the west of the country. It lived in a restaurant for five years, and it was not properly fed in that place. It was given sugar and all the wrong food that bears should not eat. Well, it was some kind of fun or entertainment for visitors. It became very heavy, that is, extremely heavy, two or three times more than the norm would be. In order to transport this bear, and we transported it to Romania, in the end… When we finally agreed with the owner, since there were some problems to reach an agreement with the owner, we then transported the bear to Romania. We built a special cage for the bear. We bought some materials, found a handyman, and made a cage. This cage is just like a whole house, but we had to make sure that it could withstand the bear’s weight, and its strength.

Coming back to lions, we normally transport lions through the Poznań zoo. We have some excellent partners there who agree to temporarily take such animals, to provide them with some living conditions and care. If we need to address some question, to solve some health issue. After that, such lions are sent to shelters, protected areas or natural reserves around the world. Certainly, for lions – this is Africa, in the first place, where they have decent conditions. This is also an effort and challenge though, as not every reserve or zoo abroad, which calls itself so, is scrupulous enough and ensures proper treatment for animals. Therefore, an important question here also is about the competence of people with whom we cooperate.

There are actually a lot of such stories. Stories that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Unfortunately, there are a lot of such stories. One of the latest such stories that struck me personally was the story of two dogs from Donetsk region. I do not remember the name of the town, but it is a small town in Donetsk region. A few months ago, we were told that there was a problem with the availability of food. And indeed, the town was occupied, and no access was given in order to deliver some food there. People suffered, and animals suffer too. And by some miracle, a man, a local resident, was able to take out the animals and hand them over to some volunteers in the neighbouring territory. Well, those few dogs..., they were just skeletons. Those were the dogs that needed to be rescued. They needed some special nutrition, and just by a miracle, being in such conditions, that man managed to evacuate them.

We learned that the owner of the dogs died of starvation. And after some time, we found out what exactly happened. Was it really so much an issue with lack of food, money, or something else? Well, in fact, both the first and the second factored in. First of all, because of the lack of food, the woman gave most of the food to her son and she herself ate less. She experienced a shortage and was in a certain mental state, in which she simply did not allow having the opportunity... did not allow eating. It is terrifying that people live in such conditions, and this happens somewhere close to us.