World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/indonesia-plastic-waste-marine-animals): Indonesia's Plastic Tide: How Marine Waste Is Killing Whales, Turtles and Dugongs.

## Briefing
Indonesia is, by most published measurements, one of the largest sources of ocean plastic in the world.

Its 17,000 islands sit at the heart of the Coral Triangle — the most biodiverse stretch of ocean on the planet — and the marine wildlife that lives there is now living through a slow-motion plastic emergency.

This briefing summarises what the credible evidence actually shows about how plastic waste in Indonesia is affecting animals , drawing primarily on IUCN, the UN Environment Programme, and Indonesia's own Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

The scale of the problem The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has repeatedly identified marine plastic as one of the fastest-growing pressures on ocean wildlife.

In its Marine Plastic Pollution issue brief, IUCN estimates that at least 14 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year, that plastic makes up roughly 80% of all marine debris, and that a small number of rivers — overwhelmingly in Asia — contribute the majority of that flow.

Indonesia, with its dense river networks and rapidly growing coastal populations, is consistently identified in this group.

The UN Environment Programme has reported similar figures and singled out Southeast Asia as the region where the impact on marine biodiversity is most acute, because the highest-density plastic outflows occur in the same waters that hold the highest concentrations of threatened marine species — sea turtles, cetaceans, dugongs, sharks and rays.

The Wakatobi sperm whale The clearest single illustration of what marine plastic does to large ocean wildlife in Indonesia is the case of the sperm whale that washed up in Wakatobi National Park, Southeast Sulawesi, in November 2018.

The whale was already dead when it stranded.

When the Wakatobi National Park authority and WWF Indonesia recovered the carcass, they found 5.9 kilograms of plastic inside its stomach.

The inventory was published by the park authority itself and is the most-cited single case in the scientific and policy literature on marine plastic in Southeast Asia: 115 plastic drinking cups 25 plastic bags 4 plastic bottles 2 flip-flops 1 nylon sack More than 1,000 individual pieces of string and plastic fragments The cause of death could not be conclusively determined because of the state of decomposition, but the volume of indigestible plastic in the stomach is consistent with the kind of starvation and gut obstruction documented in other plastic-related cetacean strandings worldwide.

Sea turtles: the most consistent victims Indonesia hosts six of the world's seven sea turtle species — green, hawksbill, olive ridley, leatherback, loggerhead and flatback — and all six are CITES Appendix I-listed, meaning international commercial trade is prohibited.

Their IUCN Red List assessments identify plastic ingestion and entanglement as recognised, ongoing threats.

The mechanism is now well understood.

Sea turtles cannot reliably distinguish floating plastic bags and plastic film from jellyfish, which is a primary food source for several species.

Ingested plastic accumulates in the gut, causes false satiety (the animal stops feeling hungry while actually starving), and frequently causes fatal obstructions.

Field studies of dead and stranded turtles across the Indonesian archipelago consistently find plastic in stomach contents.

Ghost gear: the silent killer The most lethal — and most under-discussed — form of marine plastic is abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear , usually known as "ghost gear".

IUCN and the FAO recognise ghost gear as one of the deadliest categories of marine debris because it goes on fishing long after it has been lost: nets continue to entangle fish, sharks, turtles, dolphins and dugongs, sometimes for years.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/indonesia-plastic-waste-marine-animals): Indonesia's Plastic Tide: How Marine Waste Is Killing Whales, Turtles and Dugongs.

In Indonesian waters, ghost gear is documented as a recurring cause of injury and death in: Sea turtles — entangled by flippers and necks; survivors often require amputation.

Dolphins and small cetaceans — drowned when wrapped in drifting nets.

Dugongs — vulnerable in shallow seagrass meadows where lost nets accumulate.

Sharks and rays — including species listed by CITES.

Crucially, ghost-gear entanglement is one of the most rescue-actionable forms of marine plastic harm.

Trained teams with the right boats, knives and veterinary backup can cut animals free alive — something that is simply not possible with microplastic ingestion.

Beyond the coast: the Citarum and inland wildlife Plastic and chemical pollution in Indonesia is not only a marine issue.

The Citarum river in West Java has been described in UN Environment Programme assessments as one of the most polluted rivers in the world, carrying a heavy load of plastic, textile-industry effluent and heavy metals.

The documented impacts include collapsed fish populations along stretches of the river and reduced food availability for the riverine and estuarine wildlife — including water birds and small mammals — that depend on it.

Rivers like the Citarum are also a primary pathway by which land-based plastic reaches the ocean in the first place.

Where rescue and conservation fit in Plastic pollution in Indonesia cannot be solved by rescue work alone — it needs upstream waste-management infrastructure, producer responsibility, and consumer behaviour change at a national and regional scale.

But rescue work is still indispensable for two reasons.

First, the animals already in trouble — entangled turtles, stranded cetaceans, dugongs caught in ghost nets — need a response now.

Without trained marine response teams, those individual animals die.

Second, the data those teams collect (necropsy results, stranding records, stomach-content inventories) is what drives the policy response in the first place.

The Wakatobi sperm whale changed Indonesian public conversation about single-use plastic precisely because the inventory was published in detail.

What WARN is preparing to do World Animal Rescue Network is at launch stage.

Our planned Indonesia programme is being designed to fund marine wildlife response capacity in priority coastal areas: ghost-gear cutting and disentanglement teams, veterinary triage for injured sea turtles, and necropsy and data work for stranded cetaceans.

We are launching this work in 2026 and we need supporter funding to begin.

Sources IUCN — Marine Plastic Pollution issue brief and IUCN Red List assessments for green, hawksbill, olive ridley, leatherback, loggerhead and flatback sea turtles.

UN Environment Programme — assessments of marine plastic flows from Southeast Asia and reporting on the Citarum river.

Wakatobi National Park Authority and WWF Indonesia — published inventory of stomach contents recovered from the Kapota Island sperm whale, November 2018.

CITES Appendices — listings for all six sea turtle species found in Indonesian waters.

FAO and IUCN joint guidance on abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG / "ghost gear").

We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work.

We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now.

Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost.

Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation.

You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/vietnam-cat-meat-trade): Vietnam's Forgotten Cats: One Million a Year and the Hidden Side of the Meat Trade.

## Summary
Open-source welfare investigations estimate that around one million cats are slaughtered for meat in Vietnam each year, locally referred to as 'tiểu hổ' or 'little tiger' — and a large share of those cats are stolen pets, not strays.

## Excerpt
An estimated one million cats are slaughtered for meat in Vietnam each year — locally known as 'little tiger'. Many are stolen pets. Here is what the credible evidence shows and what humane cat rescue can do.

## Takeaway
Open-source welfare investigations published in 2020 estimate roughly one million cats are slaughtered for meat in Vietnam each year.

## Takeaway
Cats sold for meat in Vietnam are locally known as 'tiểu hổ' — literally 'little tiger'.

## Takeaway
A large share of cats entering the trade are stolen pets, swept up from yards and doorways by collectors.

## Takeaway
WHO has long flagged unregulated live animal markets as a risk pathway for rabies and other zoonotic disease.

## Takeaway
Hanoi has previously published a formal call for residents to stop eating dog and cat meat — reform pressure is already coming from inside Vietnam.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/vietnam-cat-meat-trade): Vietnam's Forgotten Cats: One Million a Year and the Hidden Side of the Meat Trade.

## Briefing
When people in the UK think of the Southeast Asian meat trade, they think of dogs.

The cats are almost invisible — and that invisibility is exactly the problem.

Open-source welfare investigations published in 2020 estimate that around one million cats are slaughtered for meat in Vietnam every year , sold under the local name tiểu hổ — "little tiger".

A large share of those cats are not strays.

They are stolen pets.

The scale of the trade The figures in this section are drawn from the 2020 multi-country open-source investigations into the Southeast Asian dog and cat meat trade, which remain the most comprehensive publicly available dataset on the subject.

Vietnam: an estimated five million dogs and one million cats slaughtered for meat each year.

Cats are concentrated in specific urban and peri-urban regional markets, where they are sold alongside dog meat.

Documented transport conditions include cats packed into wire crates without food or water, frequently in shared loads with dogs of unknown origin.

Documented slaughter methods fall far below any accepted humane-slaughter standard.

'Little tiger': the language of the trade The local market name for cat meat in Vietnam — tiểu hổ, "little tiger" — points to one of the reasons the trade has been so under-reported internationally.

The supply chain is small enough, and language-specific enough, to slip past most foreign-language welfare reporting.

Within Vietnam, however, cat meat has been openly sold in named neighbourhoods of major cities, particularly in the north of the country, for decades.

Stolen pets, not strays The single most overlooked aspect of the trade — for cats as much as for dogs — is how the supply chain actually works.

Demand outstrips the available stray population, so collectors sweep up pet cats from yards, doorways and village streets.

Field reporting from the 2020 investigations documents the same pattern in cat supply as in dog supply: stolen pets, taken in front of owners, moved at speed and at scale.

Pet owners in Vietnam have increasingly organised against the practice, and reform pressure is already coming from inside the affected communities.

A public health problem as well as a welfare one Cats are not the dominant rabies vector globally — that is dogs — but the World Health Organization explicitly recognises cats as a secondary rabies vector and recommends that cats be included in mass vaccination programmes in rabies-endemic regions.

Markets and backyard slaughter points that mix cats and dogs of unknown origin at high density, with no sanitary controls, are precisely the kind of unregulated live animal trade WHO has long flagged as a route for rabies amplification and the emergence of novel zoonotic disease.

Ending the cat meat trade is, among other things, a public-health intervention.

Where the cultural picture is going The 2020 investigations also found that public attitudes in Vietnam are shifting.

Hanoi has previously published a formal call for residents to stop eating dog and cat meat.

Younger urban residents in particular are turning away from the practice, and the assumption that the trade is "traditional" and untouchable does not match what residents themselves are now saying.

Where cat rescue fits in Frontline cat rescue cannot end the trade on its own.

What it can do is intercept cats at known transport choke-points, support local veterinary services to treat survivors of seizures, expand cat shelter capacity for confiscated animals, and back the kind of mass sterilisation and vaccination programmes that reduce stray populations and rabies risk together.

Effective programmes pair veterinary triage with TNVR — trap-neuter-vaccinate-return — so that improvements in welfare and improvements in public health move forward together.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/vietnam-cat-meat-trade): Vietnam's Forgotten Cats: One Million a Year and the Hidden Side of the Meat Trade.

What WARN is preparing to do Our planned Vietnam cat protection programme — part of the wider Global Cat Protection Appeal — is designed to fund partner cat rescue and cat shelter capacity for cats recovered from transport seizures, to support trap-neuter-vaccinate-return clinics for community cats in priority urban areas, and to contribute to large-scale rabies-vaccination drives.

We are launching this work in 2026 and we need supporter funding to begin.

Sources Open-source welfare investigations into the Southeast Asian dog and cat meat trade, published 2020 — the most comprehensive publicly available dataset.

World Health Organization — Rabies Fact Sheet, including guidance on cat vaccination in rabies-endemic regions.

World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) — guidance on humane management of free-roaming cat and dog populations.

Public statements from Hanoi municipal authorities calling on residents to stop consuming dog and cat meat.

Help the cats WARN is being built for WARN's Global Cat Protection Appeal will fund partner cat rescue and cat shelter capacity across Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kenya and beyond — humane catch-neuter-vaccinate-return work, veterinary care for injured community cats, and responsible in-country cat adoption for rescue cats who can be safely rehomed.

Read the Global Cat Protection Appeal for the full plan, or donate today to fund our first surgeries, vaccinations and cat shelter weeks.

Every pound helps another rescue cat get a fair start.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/jaguar-trade-latin-america): The Jaguar Trade: How South America's Big Cat Became a Replacement for Tiger Parts.

## Summary
Jaguars are the largest big cat in the Americas, listed on CITES Appendix I and classified Near Threatened by the IUCN — and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has flagged a rising trade in jaguar parts from South America to Asian markets, in part as a substitute for tiger parts as wild tiger populations have collapsed.

## Excerpt
UNODC has flagged the rising trade in jaguar parts from South America to Asian markets, in part as a substitute for tiger parts. Here is what CITES, IUCN and UNODC data show, and what the rescue response needs to look like.

## Takeaway
Jaguars (Panthera onca) are the largest big cat in the Americas, listed on CITES Appendix I and assessed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.

## Takeaway
UNODC's World Wildlife Crime Report has documented the rising international trade in jaguar fangs, skins and bones — in part as a substitute for tiger parts.

## Takeaway
Colombia and Peru both contain large stretches of jaguar range across the Amazon and Andean foothills, and both have CITES management authorities active on enforcement.

## Takeaway
Habitat loss, retaliatory killing after livestock predation, and trafficking are the three principal pressures identified in IUCN assessments.

## Takeaway
Rescue and rehabilitation of confiscated jaguar cubs is highly specialist work and requires licensed facilities working with national CITES authorities.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/jaguar-trade-latin-america): The Jaguar Trade: How South America's Big Cat Became a Replacement for Tiger Parts.

## Briefing
The jaguar (Panthera onca) is the largest big cat in the Americas and one of only two true big cats outside Africa and Asia.

It is also, increasingly, a CITES enforcement story.

Over the last decade, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has flagged a rising international trade in jaguar parts — fangs, claws, skins and bones — much of it routed from South America towards Asian markets, in part as a substitute for tiger parts as wild tiger populations have collapsed.

The legal and conservation status The legal picture is clear, even if the enforcement picture is not.

Jaguars are listed on CITES Appendix I .

All commercial international trade in jaguar parts is prohibited.

The IUCN Red List assesses the jaguar as Near Threatened , with a decreasing population trend.

Jaguars are present across most of South and Central America, with the largest remaining populations in the Amazon basin — including parts of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia and the Guianas.

The trade UNODC has flagged UNODC's World Wildlife Crime Report series has progressively documented the rise of an international market for jaguar parts.

The pattern UNODC describes is consistent with what has been seen for other big cats: fangs and claws sold as ornaments and traditional-medicine ingredients, skins moved as trophies, and bones reportedly moved into supply chains that historically used tiger bone.

As wild tiger numbers have fallen and tiger-bone supply has tightened, demand has displaced onto other large felids — including the jaguar.

This is not a hypothetical concern.

CITES Parties have raised jaguar trafficking explicitly at recent Conferences of the Parties, and several South American countries have stepped up co-operation with CITES management authorities and customs services as a result.

But the enforcement environment across thousands of kilometres of Amazon frontier is extremely difficult.

The drivers on the ground IUCN assessments identify three principal pressures on jaguar populations, all of which interact: Habitat loss and fragmentation.

Deforestation, road-building and agricultural expansion reduce both the prey base and the range jaguars need.

Retaliatory killing.

Jaguars sometimes predate on cattle in frontier areas.

Without functioning livestock-protection programmes, retaliation by farmers is a documented cause of mortality.

Trafficking.

The trade in jaguar parts adds a third pressure on top of those — including, in some regions, jaguars killed specifically for trafficking rather than opportunistically.

Why this matters for rescue The jaguar trade is, at root, an enforcement and habitat issue.

But rescue and rehabilitation play a specific, indispensable role.

When CITES management authorities, national park services or customs teams intercept a trafficked live jaguar — particularly a cub — that animal needs a licensed, species-appropriate facility with the veterinary capacity to take it in.

Without that facility, the seizure is incomplete: the animal either dies or ends up in inappropriate captivity.

The same is true for jaguars rescued from human-wildlife conflict situations.

Specialist big cat rehabilitation is not work an external charity can do directly.

It has to be done by nationally-licensed facilities working under national wildlife law and reporting to national CITES management authorities.

Where international funding makes a difference is in supporting those facilities — quarantine pens, veterinary triage, prey provisioning, and the slow process of building a soft-release pathway for animals that can be returned to protected forest.

What WARN is preparing to do WARN's planned South America wildlife programme will support partner licensed wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centres in Colombia and Peru — countries where we are already preparing to work for spectacled bears, macaws, and howler monkeys.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/jaguar-trade-latin-america): The Jaguar Trade: How South America's Big Cat Became a Replacement for Tiger Parts.

Jaguar response is the natural extension of that footprint: shared veterinary infrastructure, shared CITES partnerships, and shared on-the-ground teams.

We are launching this work in 2026 and we need supporter funding to begin.

Sources UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) — World Wildlife Crime Report series, including chapters on big cat trafficking.

CITES — Appendix I listing for Panthera onca, plus CoP discussion documents on jaguar trafficking.

IUCN Red List — assessment of Panthera onca as Near Threatened.

National CITES management authorities in Colombia and Peru.

We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work.

We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now.

Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost.

Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation.

You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/southeast-asia-dog-cat-meat-trade): Ten Million Dogs and Cats: The Hidden Scale of Southeast Asia's Meat Trade.

## Summary
An estimated ten million dogs and cats are killed for human consumption across Southeast Asia each year — many of them stolen pets, moved across borders in conditions that breed rabies and other zoonoses.

## Excerpt
Investigations across Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia point to an estimated ten million dogs and cats slaughtered for meat each year — many of them stolen pets. Here is what the trade looks like and what reform now requires.

## Takeaway
Open-source welfare investigations estimate roughly ten million dogs and cats are killed for meat across Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia each year.

## Takeaway
Many of the animals are stolen pets, not strays.

## Takeaway
WHO estimates roughly 59,000 human rabies deaths each year worldwide, almost all from dog bites — and unsanitary supply routes are a recognised amplification risk.

## Takeaway
Major cities including Hanoi and Siem Reap have introduced bans or formal commitments to end the trade.

## Takeaway
Effective reform requires alternative-livelihood support for slaughterhouse workers, not punitive measures on individuals.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/southeast-asia-dog-cat-meat-trade): Ten Million Dogs and Cats: The Hidden Scale of Southeast Asia's Meat Trade.

## Briefing
The dog and cat meat trade in Southeast Asia is one of the largest and least visible animal welfare crises in the world today.

Multi-country open-source investigations published in 2020 estimate that around ten million dogs and cats are slaughtered for meat every year across Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia alone.

Many of the animals taken into the trade are not strays.

They are stolen pets.

The problem at a glance The figures in this section are drawn from open-source welfare investigations published in 2020, which remain the most comprehensive publicly-available dataset on the trade.

Vietnam: an estimated five million dogs and one million cats slaughtered for meat each year.

Cambodia: an estimated three million dogs killed for meat each year, with the capital Phnom Penh identified as a regional hotspot.

Indonesia: the remaining share of the regional total of approximately ten million animals per year, concentrated in specific regional markets.

Documented transport conditions include journeys of 18 hours or more without food or water , sometimes across national borders from Laos and southern China.

Documented slaughter methods include drowning, hanging, beating and blowtorching — practices that fall far below any accepted humane-slaughter standard.

Stolen pets, not strays The most overlooked aspect of the trade is how the supply chain actually works.

Field reporting from the same investigations shows demand outstrips the available stray population, so collectors — locally known as "dog catchers" — sweep up pet dogs and cats from yards, doorways and village streets.

Owners frequently watch their animals being taken, and in Vietnam in particular investigators have documented a rise in confrontations between pet owners and collectors.

Reform pressure is increasingly coming from inside the affected communities, not from outside them.

A public health problem as well as a welfare one The trade poses serious public health risks alongside the welfare ones.

Animals of unknown origin are mixed together at high density in live markets and backyard slaughter points, often with no sanitary controls.

That combination is well understood by epidemiologists as a route for rabies transmission and for the emergence of novel zoonotic diseases — a concern the World Health Organization has long raised about unregulated live animal markets in general.

Rabies remains endemic across much of the region, and dog-mediated transmission is the dominant pathway worldwide (WHO, Rabies Fact Sheet).

Removing the meat trade is, among other things, one of the most effective rabies-control measures available.

What the data also shows Public attitudes are shifting.

A 2020 survey of residents in Hanoi reported that 60% of respondents had eaten dog meat at least once , while 44% said they would refuse it in future .

Younger urban residents in particular are turning away from the practice, and several cities in the region — including Hoi An and Siem Reap — have publicly moved to end the trade within their boundaries.

The cultural picture is more complicated than the headline number suggests, and reform is already underway in places.

Where rescue fits in Frontline rescue cannot end the meat trade on its own.

What it can do is intercept animals at known transport choke-points, support local veterinary services to treat survivors of seizures, and help build the sanctuary capacity needed for confiscated animals — many of whom are deeply traumatised but recoverable.

Effective programmes pair veterinary triage with mass vaccination, neutering and community education, so that improvements in welfare and improvements in public health move forward together.

What WARN is preparing to do Our planned Southeast Asia programme is being designed to fund mobile veterinary triage for animals recovered from transport seizures, support shelter capacity for confiscated dogs and cats, and contribute to large-scale community vaccination drives in the regions most affected by rabies.

We are launching this work in 2026 and we need supporter funding to begin.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/southeast-asia-dog-cat-meat-trade): Ten Million Dogs and Cats: The Hidden Scale of Southeast Asia's Meat Trade.

Sources Open-source welfare investigations published in 2020, covering annual slaughter figures, country breakdowns, transport conditions, slaughter methods, and the Hanoi public-opinion survey cited in this dispatch.

World Health Organization, Rabies Fact Sheet.

Source for the statement that dog-mediated transmission is the dominant pathway for human rabies worldwide.

We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work.

We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now.

Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost.

Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation.

You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/orangutan-rescue-indonesia): Orangutan Rescue in Indonesia: Why Borneo's Great Apes Are Running Out of Forest.

## Summary
All three orangutan species — Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli — are listed Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. The principal driver is loss of forest habitat to palm-oil, logging and mining; the illegal pet trade is a major secondary driver.

## Excerpt
Indonesia has lost vast areas of primary rainforest over the past decade — and orangutans are paying the price. Here is the situation we are preparing to confront.

## Takeaway
All three orangutan species are Critically Endangered (IUCN Red List).

## Takeaway
Habitat loss to palm-oil, logging and mining is the principal driver.

## Takeaway
Orphaned infants require multi-year staged rehabilitation before soft release.

## Takeaway
Lifetime sanctuary care is needed for animals that cannot return to the wild.

## Takeaway
Protected forest corridors between fragmented blocks are the most cost-effective long-term intervention.

## Briefing
Orangutan rescue in Indonesia is one of the most urgent conservation needs in Southeast Asia. Both Bornean and Sumatran orangutans are classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN, with wild populations declining sharply over recent decades. Habitat conversion, illegal logging, and the exotic pet trade are the leading drivers. The problem Indonesia is home to two distinct orangutan species: Bornean (Pongo pygmaeus) and Sumatran (Pongo abelii), plus the more recently identified Tapanuli orangutan. Roughly 100,000 Bornean orangutans are estimated to remain in the wild — down from an estimated 230,000 a century ago. Female orangutans give birth roughly once every 7–8 years, the slowest birth interval of any mammal. Population recovery is exceptionally slow. When forest is cleared, orangutans cannot relocate — their range is canopy-bound. Mothers and infants are stranded in shrinking fragments until starvation or fire reaches them. How rescue works Effective orangutan rescue is a three-stage process. First, field teams locate stranded individuals inside active forest concessions and assess their condition from the ground. Second, qualified veterinarians sedate and safely transport the animals out of the danger zone. Third, the animals are rehabilitated in a secure forest sanctuary — sometimes for years — before suitable individuals can be released back into protected wild habitat. What WARN is preparing to do We are building an extraction and rehabilitation programme in Kalimantan, working alongside local conservation partners. With supporter funding, we will deploy field rescue teams, secure veterinary equipment, and contribute to a long-term forest sanctuary for orangutans that cannot be returned to the wild. We need your help to start. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/pangolin-trafficking-malaysia): Pangolin Rescue: Why the World's Most Trafficked Mammal Needs Help in Malaysia.

## Summary
Pangolins are widely reported as the most trafficked mammal in the world. All eight species are listed on CITES Appendix I, and the IUCN Red List ranges from Vulnerable to Critically Endangered.

## Excerpt
Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal on the planet — and Malaysia sits at the heart of the smuggling routes. Here is why pangolin rescue is now urgent.

## Takeaway
Pangolins are widely reported as the most trafficked mammal in the world (IUCN).

## Takeaway
All eight pangolin species are listed on CITES Appendix I.

## Takeaway
Primary demand is for scales (used in traditional medicine) and for meat.

## Takeaway
Seized live pangolins have very high mortality without specialist veterinary care.

## Takeaway
Malaysia is a major transit hub between source forests in Africa and Southeast Asia and demand markets in East Asia.

## Briefing
Pangolin rescue has become one of the defining wildlife crises of our time. All eight pangolin species are listed under CITES Appendix I, the strictest international protection available. Yet pangolins remain the most trafficked mammal in the world. Malaysia, as both a transit point and a destination market for the trade, is a critical place to intervene. The problem Hundreds of thousands of pangolins are trafficked each year, primarily for their scales. Pangolin scales are made of keratin — the same material as human fingernails — and have no proven medicinal value. Pangolins are solitary, nocturnal, and notoriously difficult to keep in captivity. Most seized pangolins die within weeks unless they are handled by experts. A single pangolin can consume tens of millions of ants and termites a year, playing a critical role in forest insect regulation. How rescue works Pangolin rescue begins with intelligence-led customs interdiction. Once pangolins are confiscated, they need immediate species-specialist veterinary care — most cannot eat anything other than live ants and termites, and many arrive dehydrated and traumatised. Surviving animals are then placed in a soft-release facility within native habitat for a slow return to the wild. What WARN is preparing to do Our Malaysia programme will fund customs-detection training at key transit points, equip a pangolin-specific rehabilitation centre with the right diet and quarantine infrastructure, and work with local rescue partners on safe soft-release into protected reserves. We cannot launch this without supporter funding. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/moon-bear-bile-vietnam): Bear Rescue in Vietnam: Inside the Moon Bear Crisis.

## Excerpt
Despite a national ban, hundreds of Asiatic black bears — known as moon bears — still live on bile farms across Vietnam. Here is the situation, and what bear rescue means now.

## Briefing
Bear bile farming is one of the most prolonged welfare issues in Asia. Bear rescue efforts in Vietnam now focus on retiring the surviving moon bears (Asiatic black bears, Ursus thibetanus) from farms where they have spent years in small cages while bile is extracted from their gallbladders. The problem Bile farming has been officially banned in Vietnam since 2005, and the Vietnamese government has committed to phasing out the practice entirely. Several hundred bears still remain on private farms today. Bile is sold for traditional medicine, despite the existence of effective synthetic and plant-based alternatives. Bears on bile farms typically suffer from gallbladder infections, broken teeth from biting cage bars, severe psychological trauma, and stunted growth. Moon bears can live 25–30 years in sanctuary care once removed from the bile-extraction cycle. How rescue works Each rescued bear requires a structured rehabilitation programme: surgical assessment of the gallbladder and teeth, careful nutrition recovery, gradual social reintroduction, and species-appropriate sanctuary enclosures with grass, trees, and pools. None of these bears can return to the wild — they will require lifetime sanctuary care. What WARN is preparing to do Working with conservation partners, we are preparing a forested sanctuary site in northern Vietnam with veterinary surgery facilities, climate-controlled dens, and quarantine wings. The programme is designed to accept moon bears as remaining farms are closed under the national phase-out. We need supporter funding to make this happen. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/thailand-wildlife-tourism): Thailand Wildlife Tourism: The Hidden Cost Behind the Selfie.

## Excerpt
Elephant rides, tiger venues, bear photo-ops, slow loris selfies — Thailand's wildlife-tourism industry hides serious welfare problems behind a friendly facade.

## Briefing
Thailand's wildlife-tourism industry attracts millions of visitors a year, but a large share of its venues are not what they appear. Behind the photo-op smile of a chained elephant or a sedated tiger sit welfare practices the international animal-welfare community has documented for decades. The problem Thousands of elephants are held in Thai tourism venues, many subjected to severe traditional training practices as juveniles. Sedation is routinely used in tiger and big-cat photo venues to keep adult animals docile around tourists. Slow lorises offered to tourists for handling often have their teeth clipped without anaesthetic — a procedure with a high mortality rate. True sanctuaries do not offer rides, baths, performances, or hands-on contact with adult predators. How to spot an ethical sanctuary Genuine sanctuaries observe four principles: no breeding, no public contact with dangerous animals, no performances, and no buying or selling of wildlife. If a venue advertises elephant rides, baby-tiger photos, or slow-loris cuddles, it is not a sanctuary. What WARN is preparing to do Our Thailand programme will support the retirement of bears, macaques, and lorises out of tourism operations into species-appropriate sanctuary care. We are also building consumer-education resources to help tourists pick venues that do not cause harm. Your support is what makes this work possible. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/cambodia-snare-crisis): The Silent Killer: Why Snare Wires Are Emptying Cambodia's Forests.

## Excerpt
Cambodia's eastern forests are riddled with wire snares. Pangolins, sun bears, elephants, leopards — anything that moves can be caught.

## Briefing
Cambodia faces what biologists now call the "empty forest syndrome": large stretches of mature forest where the trees still stand, but the animals are gone. The primary cause is widespread snaring using cheap motorcycle-cable wire. The problem Researchers estimate that millions of snares have been set across the Lower Mekong region in recent years. Snares are indiscriminate — they catch pangolins, sun bears, leopards, elephants, and gaur in equal measure. A single snare costs less than US $0.50 to set and can remain functional for years. Many trapped animals die slowly from dehydration or wound infection before they are found. How we tackle it Snare removal is one of the highest-impact conservation interventions available. It requires trained patrol teams, GPS mapping of snare hotspots, and veterinary triage capacity to treat animals found alive in snares. Where local communities depend on subsistence hunting, alternative-livelihood programmes are equally important — patrolling alone cannot solve the issue. What WARN is preparing to do Our Cambodia programme will fund and train de-snaring patrols in priority protected areas, support evidence collection for prosecutions, and provide veterinary triage for animals found alive. We also plan to support community programmes that reduce subsistence-snaring pressure over the long term. We need your help to launch this. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/pakistan-dog-culling): Stray Dog Rescue in Pakistan: Why Mass Culling Cannot Solve Rabies.

## Excerpt
Tens of thousands of street dogs are killed in Pakistani cities each year — and rabies cases continue to rise. There is a humane alternative that actually works.

## Briefing
In many Pakistani cities, street-dog populations are still managed by mass-culling methods that international public-health bodies have shown to be both ineffective and unnecessary. Tens of thousands of stray dogs die in public each year, and human rabies cases remain among the highest in the region. Stray dog rescue in Pakistan is therefore not only a welfare issue — it is a public-health one. The problem Roughly 20 million stray dogs live across Pakistan. Pakistan reports an estimated 2,000–5,000 human rabies deaths annually — among the highest figures in Asia. The World Health Organization, the World Organisation for Animal Health, and the Food and Agriculture Organization all agree that mass culling does not reduce rabies. The proven alternative is Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release (CNVR), which has eliminated dog-mediated rabies in cities including Jaipur, Chennai, and Bali. Why culling does not work Removing dogs from a territory triggers a rapid replacement effect — surrounding dog populations move into the vacated area within weeks, unvaccinated and unsterilised. Each cull therefore creates a fresh population that is just as vulnerable to rabies as the last. CNVR breaks the cycle by stabilising a vaccinated, sterilised, non-aggressive dog population. What WARN is preparing to do Working with local welfare partners, we plan to launch CNVR clinics in Karachi and Lahore and engage with provincial authorities to support CNVR as official policy. If you are looking for ways to help locally, search "puppies for adoption" or "dog adoption" with rescues in your area — and consider funding our work overseas where the need is greatest. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/colombia-parrot-trade): The Illegal Parrot Trade Bleeding Colombia's Forests.

## Excerpt
Colombia is the most biodiverse country on Earth — and one of the most active sources of trafficked parrots. The trade is huge, hidden, and devastating.

## Briefing
Parrot rescue and macaw rescue in Colombia are inseparable from one of the largest illegal wildlife trades in the Americas. Colombia hosts more bird species than any other country, and many of those birds — especially parrots, macaws, and amazons — are taken from the wild for the international pet trade. The problem Millions of birds are taken from the wild across South America each year for the pet trade. For every parrot that reaches a buyer alive, several die in transport — from heat, dehydration, broken wings, or asphyxiation. Many trafficked chicks are taken from nests by destroying nesting trees, eliminating not only the family but also the nest site for future generations. Colombia is home to more than 50 parrot species, including the Critically Endangered Yellow-eared Parrot. How rescue works Confiscated parrots need triage (many arrive injured or starving), rehabilitation in large flocking aviaries to relearn social behaviour and flight skills, and soft-release into native habitat. Done well, a single recovered parrot can re-enter a wild breeding population. Done badly, the bird ends up in a cage for the rest of its life. What WARN is preparing to do Working with local conservation partners across Colombia, WARN plans to fund parrot triage, large soft-release aviaries, and intelligence-sharing with enforcement authorities investigating the export pipeline. We also plan to support implementation of new restrictions on the domestic sale of native wildlife. We need your help to start. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/amazon-illegal-mining-wildlife): Mercury and Machines: How Illegal Mining Threatens Peru's Amazon Wildlife.

## Excerpt
In Madre de Dios, illegal gold mining clears rainforest and releases mercury into rivers. The animals that survive the deforestation are poisoned by the water.

## Briefing
Peru's southern Amazon — the Madre de Dios region — is being lost faster than almost any equivalent rainforest on Earth. Illegal alluvial gold mining clears the forest, and the mercury used to bind the gold enters every river it touches. Animals that escape the bulldozers do not escape the water. The problem Over 100,000 hectares of Peruvian rainforest have been cleared by illegal mining in the past 15 years. Substantial amounts of mercury enter the Madre de Dios watershed every year. Mercury bioaccumulates: river fish, then river otters, then capuchin monkeys and macaws drinking from clay licks all carry elevated levels. Scarlet macaws (Ara macao) and red-and-green macaws (Ara chloropterus) depend on Madre de Dios clay licks for essential minerals. Why this region matters Madre de Dios is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet — home to over 1,200 bird species, 200 mammal species, and a substantial share of the Amazon's macaw population. Losing it does not only harm the animals; it changes the ecology of the entire western Amazon basin. What WARN is preparing to do WARN's Peru programme will fund a forest sanctuary for primates and macaws confiscated from the pet trade, support training for officers on field-confiscation triage, and contribute to mercury-awareness work with riverside communities. We need supporter funding to begin. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/kenya-snare-crisis): Why Africa's Elephants Are Being Lost to Wire — Not Bullets.

## Excerpt
Ivory poaching gets the headlines, but across much of East Africa the bigger threat to elephants is cheap snare wire set for bushmeat.

## Briefing
The image most people associate with elephant poaching is an ivory carcass. The reality across much of East Africa is different — and quieter. The most consistent threat to elephants in Kenya's Tsavo ecosystem is wire snaring, set not for elephants but for bushmeat species like impala and buffalo. The problem The Tsavo ecosystem protects around 13,000 elephants — Kenya's largest single elephant population. Roughly 2,000 snares are removed from Tsavo each year by ranger patrols, with many more never found. Elephants caught in snares typically survive the initial capture and walk on — the wire cuts deeper over weeks until infection sets in. Snare wounds are treatable if found early. Field surgery in the wild has a survival rate above 80% with rapid veterinary response. How rescue works Snare wounds on elephants are easiest to spot from the air — a limp visible at distance, a younger animal lagging behind the herd. Aerial surveys give ground teams the location, and the elephant's life then depends on how fast that report becomes a darting operation and a wound debridement in the field. What WARN is preparing to do Our Kenya programme is designed to fund a mobile field-surgery unit, aerial patrol hours over Tsavo, thermal-imaging drones for ranger services, and a separate sea-turtle triage capacity on the Mombasa coast. None of this is possible without supporter funding. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/tanzania-corridor-bushmeat): Bushmeat and the Selous–Niassa Corridor: A Quiet Wildlife Emergency.

## Excerpt
The forest corridor connecting Tanzania's southern reserves with Mozambique is one of Africa's most ecologically important. It is also one of its most heavily snared.

## Briefing
The Selous–Niassa corridor links Tanzania's vast Selous Game Reserve with the Niassa Reserve across the Mozambique border. Together they form one of the largest contiguous protected ecosystems in Africa — and one of the most heavily affected by bushmeat snaring. The problem The Selous–Niassa corridor covers more than 154,000 km² across two countries. Bushmeat snaring is now considered one of the biggest threats to large mammals in this landscape. Cross-border smuggling routes complicate enforcement on both sides of the border. Lions, elephants, leopards, and wild dogs are all collateral victims of snares set for antelope. How we tackle it Effective anti-poaching in this corridor cannot be enforcement-only. It also requires reducing local demand for bushmeat through alternative-protein programmes, supporting ranger services with veterinary backup, and giving villages a direct stake in the wildlife economy around them. What WARN is preparing to do Working with local conservation partners, our Tanzania programme is designed to support ranger anti-poaching patrols, community veterinary outreach for villages bordering the reserves, and rapid-response field medicine for any wildlife found alive in snares. We need your support to launch. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/parrot-and-macaw-rescue-guide): Parrot and Macaw Rescue: What Happens to the Birds Behind the Pet Trade.

## Summary
Confiscated or distressed parrots and macaws should be contained calmly in a ventilated dark box, triaged by a CITES-experienced avian vet, quarantined, then soft-released into wild flocks where possible — or placed in lifetime sanctuary care where not.

## Excerpt
Parrot rescue and macaw rescue cover the same global trade — a multi-billion-dollar pipeline that pulls millions of wild birds out of South American forests each year.

## Takeaway
Wild-caught parrots should never be released straight into the nearest forest — they need vet triage first.

## Takeaway
Use a ventilated, darkened transport box. Never restrain by the wing.

## Takeaway
Soft-release into an existing wild flock at the bird's original range gives the best outcome.

## Takeaway
Birds imprinted on humans or with permanent injury require lifetime sanctuary care.

## Takeaway
All macaw species are CITES-listed; possession without paperwork is generally an offence.

## Briefing
Search demand for parrot rescue and macaw rescue has climbed steadily in the past five years — driven both by the growing popularity of pet parrots in the US and UK, and by a new generation of buyers waking up to where those birds actually come from. This guide answers the most common questions people ask before they look for ways to help. What is parrot rescue? Parrot rescue refers to two related activities. The first is field rescue — intercepting parrots and macaws taken from the wild before they enter the international pet pipeline. The second is captive rehoming — providing sanctuary to pet parrots whose owners can no longer care for them, often because the birds have outlived their human family or developed severe behavioural problems from solitary captivity. Why parrots and macaws are uniquely vulnerable Long lifespans. Macaws can live 50–60 years in captivity. Most owners cannot commit to a 60-year companion. Extreme sociality. Wild parrots live in flocks of dozens. A solitary pet parrot is the equivalent of solitary confinement for a primate. High mortality in trafficking. A large share of trafficked chicks die before reaching a buyer. Slow reproduction. Large macaws raise only one or two chicks every two to three years. How to support real parrot and macaw rescue If you already care for a captive parrot, find a reputable avian veterinarian and consider a same-species partner. If you are thinking about adding a parrot to your family, look for an accredited captive-parrot rescue rather than a breeder or pet store. If you want to fight the trade at its source, fund organisations doing field rescue in the Amazon basin — including WARN, which is building exactly this capacity in Colombia and Peru. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/horse-rescue-working-equines): Horse Rescue: The Forgotten 200 Million Working Equines.

## Excerpt
Horse rescue in the UK and US usually means racing retirees or surrendered companions. Globally, the larger crisis is the 200 million working horses, donkeys, and mules who never come home.

## Briefing
Horse rescue is one of the most searched animal-welfare phrases in the English-speaking world. In the UK and the US, it usually refers to retired racing thoroughbreds, surrendered family ponies, or horses pulled from neglect cases. Globally, however, the bigger horse-rescue story is happening in brick kilns, construction sites, and freight yards in Pakistan, Peru, Egypt, and Kenya. The problem An estimated 200 million working horses, donkeys, and mules support livelihoods worldwide. Roughly 600 million people depend directly on a working equine for their daily income. Most working equines die from preventable causes: harness wounds, parasitism, dehydration, and overloading. A single set of properly fitted harness equipment can extend a working horse's life by years. What working-equine rescue looks like It is not adoption — most working horses cannot stop working without their human family losing its income. Working-equine rescue is mobile veterinary medicine, free farriery, harness redistribution, dental care, and owner education delivered at the work site. Done well, it improves both animal welfare and household income, because a healthier horse can work more sustainably for longer. How you can help If you are in the UK or US, look up reputable thoroughbred-retirement and equine-rescue organisations near you for adoption or sponsorship. If you want to support working equines internationally, fund mobile-clinic programmes — they deliver the highest welfare impact per dollar of any equine-rescue intervention currently measured. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/slow-loris-pet-trade): Slow Loris: Why the Internet's Favourite Pet Is a Conservation Disaster.

## Excerpt
The slow loris looks like a cartoon character — and that has nearly destroyed the species. Here is the truth behind the viral videos.

## Briefing
The slow loris is a small nocturnal primate native to South and Southeast Asia. It is also one of the most exploited animals on the internet. Viral videos of pet lorises being "tickled" have driven an underground trade that is pushing every loris species toward extinction. The problem There are eight recognised species of slow loris, and all are protected under CITES Appendix I. The slow loris is the only venomous primate in the world — its bite can cause anaphylactic shock in humans. To make lorises "safe" as pets, traffickers clip the animals' teeth with nail clippers, without anaesthetic. Many die from infection. The "tickling" behaviour shown in viral videos is in fact a defensive posture — the loris raises its arms to access venom glands. Why they cannot be pets Lorises are nocturnal, solitary, slow-metabolising specialists. They cannot tolerate bright light, daytime activity, or social handling. A loris kept in a household will typically suffer obesity, metabolic bone disease, severe stress, and dental infection — even with the best intentions. There is no humane way to keep one as a pet. What WARN is preparing to do Our Southeast Asia programmes will fund triage, rehabilitation, and soft-release of confiscated lorises in Indonesia and Thailand, along with a public-awareness campaign asking influencers and platforms to stop amplifying loris pet content. We need your help to get this work off the ground. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/howler-monkey-facts): Howler Monkey: The Loudest Animal in the Amazon Is Going Quiet.

## Excerpt
Howler monkey calls can be heard three miles through the forest. As the Amazon shrinks, those calls are disappearing one valley at a time.

## Briefing
The howler monkey is the loudest land animal on Earth. Its dawn chorus can be heard from three miles away, and across the Amazon basin it is one of the most recognisable sounds in the rainforest. It is also a sound that is going quiet, valley by valley, as habitat shrinks and yellow-fever outbreaks sweep through unvaccinated populations. The problem There are nine recognised species of howler monkey, ranging from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. The black-and-gold howler, the brown howler, and the red-handed howler are all listed as Vulnerable or Endangered. A male howler's resonating throat sac allows calls to reach 140 decibels — comparable to a jet engine at takeoff. Howler monkeys are folivores, eating mostly leaves, and play a crucial role in forest seed dispersal. What is putting howlers at risk Three converging pressures: deforestation that fragments their canopy range; periodic yellow-fever outbreaks that can kill entire troops within weeks; and the bushmeat and pet trades, particularly affecting young howlers taken from their mothers in the smaller, gentler red-handed species. What WARN is preparing to do Our Peru and Colombia programmes include howler-monkey triage and rehabilitation, partnership with local sanctuaries on troop-level reintroductions, and funding for yellow-fever surveillance in priority forest reserves. None of this happens without supporter funding. We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/pet-adoption-vs-animal-rescue): Pet Adoption vs. Animal Rescue: How to Help When You Can't Adopt.

## Excerpt
Pet adoption, cat adoption, dog adoption, puppies for adoption — they all matter. But what about the animals you cannot bring home?

## Briefing
Every year, millions of people in the UK and US search for some version of pet adoption , cat adoption , dog adoption , or puppies for adoption . Adopting from a local shelter is one of the highest-impact things an individual can do for animal welfare. But for many people, adoption isn't a current option — and for many animals, no adopter exists. This guide is for both groups. If you can adopt Start local. Search for your nearest municipal shelter, council pound, or independent breed-specific rescue — most areas have several. Avoid breeders and pet-store puppies; adopting an existing animal frees a kennel slot for the next one. Pay attention to less-adoptable categories: senior dogs, cats with manageable medical needs, and overlooked breeds. If you cannot adopt Foster. Short-term foster homes save more lives per slot than permanent adoption, because they keep shelter capacity flowing. Sponsor. Most credible rescues let you sponsor a kennel or a specific animal for a fixed monthly amount. Volunteer. Dog walking, cat socialisation, transport runs, photography for adoption listings — every shelter is short of hands. Fund field rescue overseas. The animals in the worst situations — trafficked wildlife, working horses, street dogs in cull zones — cannot be adopted out of trouble. They need someone to fund the rescue itself. How WARN fits in WARN does not do US/UK pet adoption — but we are building the capacity to rescue animals that no one can adopt: orangutans, parrots, pangolins, street dogs in cull-zone cities, and snared elephants. If you already support a local adoption shelter, consider pairing that with monthly support for international field rescue. We are at the launch stage and your help matters most right now. Lost an animal? If you have arrived here while grieving an animal you loved, we are so sorry. Many supporters tell us that doing something concrete for another animal — in their pet's name — helps in the early weeks. See WARN's in memory giving page , or read our short pet loss support guide . We need your support to make this happen World Animal Rescue Network is at the launch stage of this work. We do not yet have rescue numbers to share — and that is exactly why your support matters now. Every donation helps us put trained teams on the ground, secure veterinary supplies and equipment, and reach the first animals before they are lost. Donate today to fund our first deployments, or sponsor an animal to back a specific species through rehabilitation. You can also join the network as a volunteer, fundraiser, or monthly supporter.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/how-to-adopt-a-dog): How to Adopt a Dog: A Complete Guide to Dog Adoption and Rescue Dogs.

## Summary
To adopt a dog, search local rescue organisations and shelters for dogs whose personality matches your home, complete an application and home check, pay the adoption fee, and bring your new rescue dog home — usually a two- to four-week process from first visit to settled in.

## Excerpt
Thinking of adopting a dog? Here is the complete guide to dog adoption, what to expect from rescue dogs, how to find a reputable rescue near you — and how to help the street dogs that cannot be adopted out of trouble.

## Takeaway
The most reliable way to adopt a dog is through a registered rescue or animal shelter — never through a free-online-classified or a pop-up seller.

## Takeaway
Searching 'adopt a dog near me' or 'dog adoption near me' on Google Maps surfaces local rescues, council pounds and breed-specific organisations in minutes.

## Takeaway
Most rescue dogs need two to six weeks to fully decompress; the first 72 hours are the hardest and the most important.

## Takeaway
Adoption fees typically cover the rescue dog's vaccinations, microchip, neutering and a starter health check.

## Takeaway
If you cannot adopt yourself, foster, sponsor or fund the field rescue work that helps dogs in countries with no adoption infrastructure.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/how-to-adopt-a-dog): How to Adopt a Dog: A Complete Guide to Dog Adoption and Rescue Dogs.

## Briefing
If you are thinking about how to adopt a dog , you are not alone.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people search for "adopt a dog near me" or "dog adoption near me" and end up changing a rescue dog's life — and their own.

This guide explains how dog adoption actually works, what to expect from rescue dogs , and how to make sure you choose a rescue you can trust.

What "rescue dogs" actually means The phrase rescue dogs covers any dog who has come into the care of a rescue organisation, an animal shelter or a council pound and is waiting for a permanent home.

Some are owner-surrendered.

Some are strays.

Some are seized from cruelty cases or hoarding situations.

A small minority are international rescue dogs flown in from countries with severe street-dog welfare problems.

They are not "broken" — they are just dogs who need a second chance.

How to adopt a dog: the step-by-step process Search "adopt a dog near me" or "dog adoption near me".

Google Maps will surface your nearest registered rescues, council pounds and breed-specific organisations.

Make a shortlist of three to five.

Read the rescue's listings honestly.

Look at the rescue dogs they have right now.

A good rescue is candid about energy levels, training needs and any history of nervousness, dog-aggression or separation anxiety.

Vague listings are a warning sign.

Apply.

A serious rescue will ask about your home, your hours, your family, any other pets, your garden and your previous dog experience.

The application is not a test — it is a match.

Home check.

Most reputable rescues do a short home visit or video call to make sure the environment is safe.

This is normal and a sign of a careful rescue, not a suspicious one.

Meet the dog.

Spend real time with the rescue dog before you commit.

If you have other dogs at home, the rescue will arrange a structured meet-and-greet.

Pay the adoption fee and sign the contract.

Fees typically range from £150 to £400 and cover vaccinations, microchipping, neutering and an initial vet check.

Take your rescue dog home.

Use the 3-3-3 rule: 3 days of decompression, 3 weeks of settling in, 3 months to fully relax.

Patience pays off.

Where to find a dog to adopt near you If you live in the UK, three categories of organisation are worth searching for when you look up dog adoption near me : Local registered rescues and animal shelters.

Small, often volunteer-led, usually with a handful of rescue dogs in foster homes at any one time.

Personal, careful, slow — in a good way.

Council pounds and stray dog services.

Hold lost and abandoned dogs for a statutory period before making them available for adoption.

Breed-specific rescues.

If you have your heart set on a particular breed or type, breed-specific rescues focus on adopting out exactly those dogs.

Whichever route you choose, only adopt from an organisation registered as either a UK charity or a non-profit.

Check their Charity Commission listing and look for transparent veterinary policies before you apply to adopt a dog.

What to expect from a rescue dog Rescue dogs come with a history.

That history is rarely as dark as people imagine — most have been loved at some point — but it does mean the first few weeks at home need patience.

Expect a quiet, slightly withdrawn dog for the first 72 hours, gradual emergence over the first three weeks, and the dog's real personality only fully appearing at around the three-month mark.

Do not invite friends over to meet your new rescue dog on day one.

Let them settle.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/how-to-adopt-a-dog): How to Adopt a Dog: A Complete Guide to Dog Adoption and Rescue Dogs.

Adopt, foster, sponsor — or fund field rescue Not everyone can adopt a dog right now.

There are still meaningful ways to help rescue dogs : Foster.

A short-term foster home saves more rescue dogs per slot than a single adoption, because it keeps shelter capacity flowing.

Sponsor.

Most rescues let you sponsor a specific dog for a small monthly amount.

Volunteer.

Dog walking, transport runs, photography for adoption listings — every animal shelter is short of hands.

Fund overseas field rescue.

In some cities there is almost no rescue capacity at all, and the dogs there cannot be adopted out of trouble — they need someone to fund the rescue itself.

The dogs no one can adopt: how WARN fits in World Animal Rescue Network is a UK not-for-profit, currently in its launch stage.

We do not arrange UK pet adoptions — if you searched "adopt a dog near me" or "dog adoption near me", the best thing we can do is point you to your nearest registered animal shelter or breed rescue.

Adopt locally.

Where we focus is the dogs no UK rescue can adopt out: street dogs in cities like Karachi, where hundreds of thousands of dogs live without veterinary care, without rabies vaccination and without any path to a safe home.

Our planned Karachi programme will fund partner dog rescues , expand animal shelter capacity in Pakistan, and back humane catch-neuter-vaccinate-return work that has been proven to reduce both dog suffering and dog-mediated human rabies at city scale.

If you are about to adopt a rescue dog, congratulations.

If you can also spare a little to fund the rescue dogs who are too far away for adoption to reach, please consider supporting the Karachi appeal below.

If you have just lost a dog Some readers find this page in the weeks after losing a dog, when adoption isn't yet right.

If that is you, please take your time.

Our pet loss support guide covers what to do in the first hours and weeks, and our in memory giving page explains how a tribute donation for a dog directly helps street dogs that cannot be adopted out of trouble.

Help the rescue dogs WARN is being built for WARN's launch programme in Karachi will fund partner dog rescues and the animal shelter capacity they urgently need — humane catch-neuter-vaccinate-return work, veterinary care for injured street dogs, and responsible in-country adoption of rescue dogs into safe Pakistani homes.

Read the Karachi street dogs appeal for the full plan, or donate today to fund our first surgeries, vaccinations and shelter weeks.

Every pound helps another rescue dog get a fair start.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/dog-shelters-and-animal-shelters-guide): Dog Shelters, Animal Shelters and Dog Rescues: A Guide to Finding and Trusting One.

## Summary
A dog shelter, animal shelter or dog rescue is a registered organisation that takes in stray, surrendered or seized dogs, gives them veterinary care, and rehomes them through a screened adoption process — the easiest way to find one is to search 'animal shelter near me' or 'dog rescues near me' and check the charity is officially registered before applying.

## Excerpt
What's the difference between a dog shelter, an animal shelter and a dog rescue? How do you find a good one near you, and what should you look for before you trust them with a rescue dog — or your money?

## Takeaway
A dog shelter and an animal shelter are essentially the same thing — animal shelter is the broader term and usually covers cats and other species as well.

## Takeaway
Dog rescues tend to be smaller, foster-home-based organisations focused specifically on dogs and often on a particular breed or background.

## Takeaway
Always check the charity registration of any dog shelter or animal shelter before adopting or donating — in the UK that means a Charity Commission listing.

## Takeaway
A 'no-kill' label is meaningful only if the organisation publishes its intake, adoption and euthanasia statistics.

## Takeaway
Searching 'dog shelters near me' or 'animal shelter near me' on Google Maps is the fastest legitimate way to find local options.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/dog-shelters-and-animal-shelters-guide): Dog Shelters, Animal Shelters and Dog Rescues: A Guide to Finding and Trusting One.

## Briefing
Searching for dog shelters , an animal shelter or local dog rescues can feel surprisingly confusing.

The words are used interchangeably, every organisation calls itself "the best", and not all of them are what they appear.

This guide explains the differences, what to look for, and how to find a credible animal shelter near me or dog rescues near me — whether you want to adopt, foster, volunteer or donate.

Dog shelter vs animal shelter vs dog rescue The three terms overlap, but there are some real differences in practice: Animal shelter.

The broadest term.

An animal shelter takes in any species — dogs, cats, rabbits, sometimes wildlife — and typically operates from a single physical site with kennels and a veterinary room.

Council pounds, large national rescue charities and many municipal facilities fall under this label.

Dog shelter.

An animal shelter that specifically focuses on dogs.

In day-to-day language, "dog shelter" and "animal shelter" are used interchangeably.

Dog rescues.

Smaller organisations, often volunteer-led and foster-home-based.

Many dog rescues specialise in a particular breed (greyhound rescues, lurcher rescues, ex-racing dog rescues) or a particular situation (medical-need dogs, ex-pound dogs, international rescue dogs).

They tend to be slower, more selective and more personal than a large animal shelter.

How to find dog shelters near you The fastest legitimate way to find a credible animal shelter near me or dog rescues near me is Google Maps.

Type the search exactly as you would say it — "dog shelters near me", "animal shelter near me", "dog rescues near me" — and Maps surfaces the nearest options with reviews, opening hours and websites.

From there: Filter to registered charities.

Look for "Charity Commission" or a registered charity number on the organisation's website.

Check independent reviews.

Read Google reviews, not just testimonials on the rescue's own page.

Look at their current dogs.

A real, working dog shelter or animal shelter will have a regularly updated adoption list with photos, names and honest descriptions.

Read their adoption policy.

The presence of a home check, an application form and a contract are all good signs.

What a good dog shelter looks like Whether you call it a dog shelter, an animal shelter or a dog rescue, the markers of a credible organisation are the same: Registered as a charity or non-profit.

In the UK that means a current Charity Commission listing with up-to-date accounts.

A clear veterinary policy.

Vaccinations, microchipping, neutering and a vet check should be standard before any rescue dog leaves the shelter.

A real adoption process.

Application form, home check, meet-and-greet, contract — none of these are bureaucracy for its own sake.

They protect both you and the dog.

Honesty about their dogs.

A trustworthy animal shelter will tell you which dogs cannot live with cats, which need experienced homes, and which need quiet households.

Vagueness is a red flag.

Transparent statistics.

"No-kill" is only a meaningful claim if the organisation publishes its intake, adoption and euthanasia numbers.

What to look out for Unfortunately, not every operation calling itself a dog rescue is the real thing.

Avoid any "dog shelter", "animal shelter" or "dog rescue" that: Has no charity registration and no listed address.

Pressures you into a same-day adoption or a cash payment.

Cannot tell you who the dog's vet is.

Sells puppies regularly — almost no genuine rescue has a constant supply of puppies.

Refuses any kind of home check or aftercare.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/dog-shelters-and-animal-shelters-guide): Dog Shelters, Animal Shelters and Dog Rescues: A Guide to Finding and Trusting One.

The animal shelter problem WARN is being built for The UK has thousands of well-run dog shelters, animal shelters and dog rescues.

Many countries do not.

In Karachi, Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of free-roaming dogs share the city with people, and the small network of local dog rescues and partner animal shelter teams who try to look after them are chronically under-resourced.

World Animal Rescue Network is a UK not-for-profit in launch stage.

We do not run dog shelters in the UK and we do not arrange UK adoptions.

Where we focus is funding the partner dog rescues and animal shelter capacity in countries where there simply is not enough.

In Karachi, our planned programme will fund veterinary care for street dogs, expand local animal shelter capacity, and back the catch-neuter-vaccinate-return work the World Health Organization recommends for cities with large free-roaming dog populations.

If you are looking for an animal shelter near you for adoption, please adopt locally.

If you can also support the dogs in cities with almost no shelter at all, please consider backing our Karachi appeal below.

Remembering a dog who has died If you are reading this in memory of a dog rather than to adopt one, WARN's in memory giving page explains how a tribute for a dog is directed to street-dog welfare overseas.

Our pet loss support guide may also help.

Help the rescue dogs WARN is being built for WARN's launch programme in Karachi will fund partner dog rescues and the animal shelter capacity they urgently need — humane catch-neuter-vaccinate-return work, veterinary care for injured street dogs, and responsible in-country adoption of rescue dogs into safe Pakistani homes.

Read the Karachi street dogs appeal for the full plan, or donate today to fund our first surgeries, vaccinations and shelter weeks.

Every pound helps another rescue dog get a fair start.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/dog-rehoming-guide): Dog Rehoming: How It Works and How to Do It Responsibly.

## Summary
Dog rehoming is the process of moving a dog from one home to another — usually via a registered dog shelter, dog rescue or rehoming charity — and the responsible way to do it is through an organisation that screens new owners, completes a home check and provides a written adoption contract.

## Excerpt
Whether you need to rehome a dog yourself or you are looking to take one on, this guide explains how dog rehoming actually works, what to avoid, and where the most vulnerable dogs in the world need rehoming help right now.

## Takeaway
Dog rehoming is the safe, screened alternative to advertising a dog as 'free to a good home' online — which is one of the highest-risk routes for the dog.

## Takeaway
Always rehome through a registered dog rescue, dog shelter or charity that does home checks and uses an adoption contract.

## Takeaway
Most reputable rehoming organisations charge a modest adoption fee that covers vaccinations, microchip and neutering — this is normal.

## Takeaway
If you are taking on a rehomed rescue dog, give them at least 3 weeks of quiet decompression before judging behaviour.

## Takeaway
International dog rehoming is rarely the answer — far more rescue dogs can be helped by funding shelter capacity where they actually live.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/dog-rehoming-guide): Dog Rehoming: How It Works and How to Do It Responsibly.

## Briefing
Dog rehoming is the process of moving a dog from one home to another, usually because the first owner can no longer keep them.

Done well, it is one of the kindest things a person can do for a dog.

Done badly — through free online listings, casual handovers and no follow-up — it puts the dog directly in harm's way.

This guide explains how to rehome a dog responsibly, how to take one on, and what to look for in a credible rehoming organisation.

When dog rehoming is the right answer There are good reasons to rehome a dog: a change of family circumstances, a new baby with a severe allergy, a serious illness, a relocation that genuinely cannot accommodate the dog.

There are also reasons that, in our experience, are worth pausing on.

Many "behaviour" problems — pulling on the lead, jumping up, mild separation anxiety — are very fixable with the right trainer, and many dogs are rehomed when they could have stayed.

If you are not sure, talk to a registered dog rescue first; most will offer behaviour advice for free.

How to rehome a dog responsibly Contact a registered dog rescue or dog shelter.

Search "dog rehoming near me" and shortlist the registered charities.

Many UK rescues prioritise owner-surrender cases because they know the dog's history and can match them more accurately.

Be honest about your dog.

Write down everything — health, training, history with children and other animals, fears, favourite things.

The more honest you are, the better the rescue can match.

Allow the rescue to do its work.

A good rescue will assess your dog, place them in foster or kennels, screen potential adopters, do home checks and use an adoption contract.

Do not be tempted to handle the rehoming privately to save time.

Avoid "free to a good home" listings.

They are one of the highest-risk routes for a dog, regularly used by people looking for cheap breeding stock, bait dogs or resale.

Accept the goodbye.

A responsible rehoming organisation will usually tell you when the dog is settled, but they may not share full ongoing details.

That protects the new owners and the dog.

How to adopt a rehomed dog If you are at the other end — looking to take on a rehomed rescue dog — the process mirrors any other dog adoption.

Search "dog rehoming near me", apply to a registered dog rescue, complete a home check, meet the dog, sign the adoption contract and pay the adoption fee.

Most rehomed rescue dogs settle beautifully if you give them the 3-3-3 timeline: three days of decompression, three weeks of settling, three months of fully relaxing.

What to avoid Free online listings.

Gumtree-style "free to a good home" dog listings are the single most dangerous route for a rehomed dog.

Same-day rehoming.

Responsible rehoming takes weeks, not minutes.

No contract.

Without an adoption contract you have no recourse and the dog has no protection.

No vet history.

A reputable dog rescue will know exactly when the rescue dog was last vaccinated, neutered and seen by a vet.

Pressure to take a deposit before meeting.

Always meet the dog first.

International dog rehoming: why it is rarely the answer It is increasingly common to see street dogs from Pakistan, Romania, Greece or Sri Lanka being rehomed to the UK.

We understand the impulse — these are rescue dogs in obvious need.

But long-distance rehoming is stressful for the dog, expensive to organise, and only helps one animal at a time.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/dog-rehoming-guide): Dog Rehoming: How It Works and How to Do It Responsibly.

In cities like Karachi, where hundreds of thousands of street dogs live with no veterinary cover, the same money funds dozens of rescue dogs through neutering, vaccination and local rehoming inside Pakistan — a far better outcome at scale.

Where WARN fits in World Animal Rescue Network is a UK not-for-profit in its launch stage.

We do not run UK dog rehoming and we do not arrange international rescue-dog imports.

Where we focus is funding partner dog rescues and animal shelter capacity in the cities that need it most — starting with Karachi, where our planned programme will fund veterinary care, expand shelter capacity, back catch-neuter-vaccinate-return work, and support responsible in-country adoption of rescue dogs into safe Pakistani homes.

If you are rehoming a dog in the UK or looking to take one on, please use a registered UK rescue.

If you can also help the rescue dogs in cities with almost no shelter at all, please consider backing our Karachi appeal below.

If rehoming follows a loss Sometimes rehoming a dog follows the death of another animal in the household, or a major change after losing a pet.

If that is part of what brought you here, our pet loss support guide and in memory giving page may be useful.

Help the rescue dogs WARN is being built for WARN's launch programme in Karachi will fund partner dog rescues and the animal shelter capacity they urgently need — humane catch-neuter-vaccinate-return work, veterinary care for injured street dogs, and responsible in-country adoption of rescue dogs into safe Pakistani homes.

Read the Karachi street dogs appeal for the full plan, or donate today to fund our first surgeries, vaccinations and shelter weeks.

Every pound helps another rescue dog get a fair start.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/complete-cat-care-guide): The Complete Cat Care Guide: Food, Shelter, Veterinary Care and Community Cats.

## Summary
Good cat care means daily fresh water, twice-daily wet food appropriate to the cat's life stage, a quiet safe place to rest, an annual vet check with up-to-date vaccinations, neutering by six months, regular flea and worm prevention, and — for community cats — an insulated outdoor shelter, a reliable food station and a TNVR plan run by a registered cat charity.

## Excerpt
Everything responsible cat owners and community cat carers need to know — daily care, food, water, indoor enrichment, outdoor shelters, vaccinations, neutering, common illnesses and how a cat charity like WARN supports cats globally.

## Takeaway
Cats need wet food, not just dry — at least 60-70% of daily intake should be wet food to support hydration and kidney health.

## Takeaway
Fresh water should be available 24/7, ideally in a shallow ceramic or stainless-steel bowl placed away from the food.

## Takeaway
All cats — pet or community — should be neutered, microchipped and vaccinated against rabies and core feline diseases.

## Takeaway
Community cats need insulated outdoor shelters in cold months: straw (never blankets), elevated, dry, two exits.

## Takeaway
If you are looking for a cat charity to support, choose one with a clear veterinary policy, transparent finances and a published TNVR or community cat strategy.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/complete-cat-care-guide): The Complete Cat Care Guide: Food, Shelter, Veterinary Care and Community Cats.

## Briefing
Cats are the second-most popular companion animal in the world and the most frequent free-roaming companion animal across the countries WARN is preparing to work in.

Whether you live with a single indoor cat, run a small cat charity , or quietly feed a colony of community cats outside your home, the principles of good cat care are the same — they just scale up.

This guide covers everything responsible cat carers should know, and goes further than most published care sheets on three under-covered topics: outdoor shelter design, TNVR for community cats, and recognising serious illness early.

Daily care: food, water and routine Cats are obligate carnivores.

Their bodies require nutrients — taurine, arginine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A in active form — that can only be obtained from animal protein.

Get the food right and almost everything else gets easier.

Wet food first.

At least 60-70% of daily food intake should be wet food.

Cats evolved to get most of their water from prey and frequently fail to drink enough on a dry-only diet.

Chronic low-level dehydration is one of the main drivers of feline kidney disease.

Twice-daily meals, not constant grazing.

Free-feeding contributes to feline obesity, which the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) identifies as one of the most common preventable health problems in cats.

Life-stage matters.

Kittens need kitten-specific food until 12 months.

Senior cats (10+) often need diets adjusted for kidney function and protein quality.

Fresh water, always.

Replace water at least once a day.

Place water bowls away from food — cats have an instinctive aversion to water near prey.

Never give cow's milk.

Most adult cats are lactose intolerant.

Indoor enrichment: how to stop a bored cat becoming a difficult cat Most behaviour problems in indoor cats — overgrooming, aggression, inappropriate toileting, destructive scratching — trace back to one cause: under-stimulation.

A cat in an apartment needs deliberate enrichment: Vertical space.

Cat trees, shelves, window perches.

Cats feel safest above the room, not in it.

Hunting play, twice a day.

Ten to fifteen minutes with a wand toy mimicking prey movement — slow stalk, fast chase, brief "catch", reward with a small wet-food snack.

This single change reduces inter-cat aggression and destructive behaviour more than any other intervention.

Scratching surfaces.

Vertical sisal posts and horizontal cardboard.

Cats scratch to mark, stretch and condition their claws; refusing them surfaces guarantees they choose your sofa.

Hiding places.

A simple cardboard box is one of the most effective stress-reducing items in a cat's environment.

Litter trays.

One per cat plus one extra, placed in quiet locations, scooped daily, fully cleaned weekly.

Most "litter box problems" are environment problems.

Veterinary care: the non-negotiables Regardless of where in the world a cat lives, the veterinary baseline is the same: Annual health check.

Weight, dental, kidney bloods from age 7, blood-pressure check from age 10.

Core vaccinations.

Feline panleukopenia (FPV), feline herpesvirus (FHV-1), feline calicivirus (FCV).

Rabies vaccination is essential in rabies-endemic countries and is recommended by WHO and WOAH wherever cats may come into contact with potential vectors.

Neutering by six months.

Reduces mammary cancer, eliminates pyometra, reduces fighting, eliminates accidental litters.

There is no health benefit to allowing a "first litter".

Microchipping.

A microchip is the single most effective intervention against permanent loss.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/newsroom/complete-cat-care-guide): The Complete Cat Care Guide: Food, Shelter, Veterinary Care and Community Cats.

Parasite prevention.

Monthly flea-and-tick treatment, quarterly worming.

Both are cheap and prevent serious illness.

Dental care.

Roughly 70% of cats over the age of three show signs of dental disease.

Annual dental checks should be standard from age three onwards.

Community cats: the welfare population most people miss Community cats — sometimes called feral cats, street cats or stray cats — are the cats that live outdoors near people but are not anyone's pet.

They are usually born to other community cats, deeply bonded to their territory, and often unsuited to indoor adoption.

Good cat charity work treats them as a recognisable population in their own right, not as "strays to be removed".

TNVR — trap, neuter, vaccinate, return The internationally recognised approach to community cat populations is TNVR.

The cat is humanely trapped, brought to a clinic, neutered, vaccinated (rabies plus core feline vaccines), ear-tipped (a tiny notch on the left ear, the universal sign of a sterilised colony cat), and returned to exactly the location it was trapped from.

Done at sufficient scale (≈70% sterilisation coverage), TNVR stabilises and then reduces the colony, dramatically lowers fighting and disease transmission, and is the strategy recommended by major animal welfare bodies for free-roaming cats worldwide.

Outdoor shelters that actually work If you care for community cats, especially in colder months, shelter is critical and is the single area where most amateur cat-care advice goes wrong.

A good outdoor cat shelter: Is elevated off the ground by at least 10 cm to stay dry.

Has two exits so a cat is never cornered by a predator or another cat.

Uses straw, never blankets or towels.

Straw insulates and stays dry; blankets retain moisture and freeze.

Has a small entrance (about 15 cm diameter) — large enough for the cat, small enough to keep heat in and bigger predators out.

Is placed against a wall in a quiet area, away from foot traffic.

Is paired with a protected feeding station at least a metre away — never inside the shelter.

Feeding stations Feed at set times, in set quantities, in protected containers.

Avoid leaving food out overnight (it attracts wildlife and pests).

A reliable feeding routine is also what makes humane trapping possible when it is time for TNVR.

Recognising serious illness — the early signs people miss Cats are extraordinary at hiding illness.

The following are the early warning signs every cat carer should know: Sudden change in water consumption.

Either much more or much less.

Often the first sign of kidney disease, diabetes or hyperthyroidism.

Weight loss despite normal appetite.

Strongly suggestive of hyperthyroidism or diabetes in older cats.

Reduced grooming.

A coat that becomes greasy, matted or unkempt is often the earliest sign of pain — particularly dental pain or arthritis.

Hiding more than usual.

One of the most reliable behavioural signs that a cat is unwell.

Difficulty urinating.

Straining, frequent trips to the litter tray, vocalising.

In male cats especially, this is a veterinary emergency — urinary blockage can be fatal within 24-48 hours.

Breathing through the mouth.

Cats almost never pant.

Open-mouth breathing in a cat at rest is an emergency.

First aid basics Every cat carer should know the absolute minimum first aid: Bleeding: direct pressure with clean cloth, get to vet.

Suspected poisoning: never induce vomiting in a cat — go straight to vet.

Bring the packaging.

Heatstroke: cool gradually with damp towels, fan, get to vet.

Choking: only attempt to remove visible obstructions.

Otherwise straight to vet.

Seizure: do not restrain.