Update 11th April 2011


One month since the quake and tsunami, so much more to do.


Many of you have expressed concern about the horses starving to death in the 20k No-Go zone. Amie Nagano from the Economist who was together with me when we came across this farm has forwarded an update. Numata san who is with Intaiba Kyokai, which runs a foster programme for rescued and retired horses, visited the farm on the 9th. She has arranged to move the horses to a temporary shelter in Soma, outside the No-go zone. Unfortunately two more horses had died and two more are too weak to be transported so they have been left with the owner. I think that Intaiba Kyokai has good connections with the local authorities and so is better placed that we are to arrange all this. I'm glad however that we could bring this to their notice and that they are helping those poor animals.


The area where that farm is was so badly hit by the tsunami, just sand and mud, not a blade of grass anywhere but in other unaffected hilly areas, horses and cows have been let loose to forage and now it's spring, there'll be enough grass for them to survive on. I will try to get more information from Numata san.


Boys came back yesterday evening from Fukushima with five dogs; cream lab female, brown mix male, beige mix male, black and tan mix female, shiba female. Their names are BE MY FRIEND, BRAVE, TOHOHOKU BOY, JUST ME and SECRET. The two dogs I brought back the day before are called : SAFE and SOUND and the Golden Retriever sent by air, I'M OK. We are running out of names so suggestions, please Since we don't know if these dogs have owners or not ,we are sending details with photos to the authorities nearest to where they were found.


An announcement this morning is very serious. Within two weeks the whole area of 20k around the reactor will be sealed off and people won't be allowed to go in there. That means that we have to rescue as many animals as possible before that time limit. Although we had found a possible place for setting up an animal evacuation shelter just inside Fukushima, it would take around a month to set it up. The same goes for our land in Sasayama. Tokyo ARK too is very over-stretched as they have to take the animals to outside vets for checking and neutering before placing them in foster homes. Therefore the logistics of moving to Fukushima and arranging for staff to go and work there is really not possible. We have therefore decided to divide the facilities here as much as we can, in order to accommodate incoming animals. It will mean a lot of extra work for our staff and less space for animals, but without doing this, the animals in Fukushima cannot be rescued and may not survive. We are ordering fence circles which can be put up quite easily and we have plenty of kennels already.


The account that we have been using for replying to English emails and sending out updates has reached it's limits so we have set up a new email account that will be used specificaly for updates and emails related to the earthquake and subsequent disasters. So as of the next update the updates will be coming from [email protected]


Elizabeth Oliver
Animal Refuge Kansai - ARK
Web Site: http://arkbark.net