Tsunami Animal People Alliance ( TAPA) was formed in January 2005 in response to the disaster that hit the South East Coast in Dec 2004 . The Bali Street Dog Team together with a few volunteer Vets from Australia and New Zealand, including Dr Elaine Ong and Dr Chris Barton, assisted in the rescue, treatment of displaced and injured dogs and cats. Many were euthanased humanely due to untreatable injuries.

 

An estimated 1 million dogs and cats were displaced or injured Furthermore , there was fear of rabies spreading through refugee camps and increase in fighting among displaced and distressed dogs. The Sri lankan Government shelved plans kill dogs en masse after TAPA stepped in with a mobile clinic providing free  desexings, rabies vaccinations, and medical treatment of all animals in particular dogs.

 

The TAPA team have desexed over 50,000 dogs and cats and rabies vaccinated over 100,000 dogs and cats between Jan 2005 and Jan 2012.

 

Post tsunami recovery and reconstruction continued in Sri lanka but at a slow pace. Many people and animals for many years were still in transitional shelters, while various bottlenecks have slowed down progress. The conflict between the LTTE and the Government had prevented assistance flowing in some areas Our team continued to work in the South and South eastern coast right through all the conflict ,assisting in all communities, assisting in the army camps without prejudice, as all animals needed our help.

 

We are widely appreciated by the community and have government endorsement.

 

The team travels along the East and south coast revisiting places we visited a year ago to sterilize and vaccinate the newborns that we previously missed as we travel along the tsunami coast.

 

The Team was also invited by the Ahmedabad Government in India to assist in the training of Indian teams to help with their stray dog population.

 

Our role is to provide them with highly skilled veterinarians and nurses ( who all pay their own way) to reinforce the training and teach them new skills , supply them with medicines and drugs to help reduce cost of the work and to enable this worthy project to be sustainable.

 

Our Team in Sri Lanka is the only veterinary service providing free dog/cat desexing,rabies vaccinating and general treatment in the entire east,south east coast and most of the south coast covering about 400 km.

 

TAPA relies on private funding by generous donors such as The Brigitte Bardot foundation, Parks Foundation UK. Dogstar foundation UK and Winsome Constance Kindness trust Australia.

 

Dr Elaine Ong is one of the Board Member of the Tsunami Animal Pepole Trust since 2005. She is responsible for recruiting and screening volunteer vets and nurses to assist the TAPA team. Together with Dr Chris Barton,  medical supplies donated  from other veterinary clinics from Victoria are collected for the  BACAR work.