Evaluation of Animal Rescue Activities in Tekirdağ City, Turkey

This study was conducted to evaluate the response readiness for disasters based on the current animal rescue activities performed in Tekirdağ city. The material of this research contained the data of the animal rescue operations in Tekirdağ in 2019 and 2020. Results showed that a total of 2201 (82.7%) animals were saved in 2663 operations while 251 (9.4%) animals couldn’t be saved in 2020. The average intervention time was around half an hour. The majority of the animals (2118; 79.5%) were released to nature while some of the others were handed over to the owner (24; 0,9%), delivered to the local veterinarian (31; 1.2%), to the shelter (35; 1.3%) or Forestry Waterworks (1; 0.04%). Nothing was done to the rest (454; 17.1%) because they were not found, inaccessible or found dead. This study emphasizes the need for a standardized monitoring system with appropriate data routinely collected from all rescue groups. International standards should be adopted by providing correct information to the rescue teams of each district. In this context, readiness, response and recovery stages should be first developed at the local level and applied to large events for better incident management.