February Tested Us. Here is How We Showed up!
Last Month Was Hard. The Work Continues.
From Asian New Year to Summer challenges coming too soon
February arrived with love on its lips and grief in its hands. It gave us Asian New Year celebrations and Valentine's Day warmth, and then reminded us, brutally, that compassion in India still comes at a cost.
This month, we celebrated, we mourned, we demanded justice, and we kept showing up. Because that's what this work demands.
Here's what February looked like.
Year of the Fire Horse 🐴🔥
We celebrated Asian New Year: the Year of the Fire Horse.
Fire Horse brings movement, courage, and transformation. Qualities this movement desperately needs right now.
This New Year, we invited our community to extend compassion beyond celebration—to let their plates reflect the same kindness they show to animals. Because the Fire Horse's energy isn't just about bold beginnings. It's about choosing differently, every single day.
May this year bring the transformation our animals so urgently need.
Valentine's Day - Love That Shows Up ❤️
Valentine's Day this year wasn't just about roses and chocolates. It was to be about love that actually costs nothing.
But February 14th turned out to be otherwise, because the Dil Se Protest (Dil-se means ‘From the Heart’) planned for near Delhi, was cancelled in the wake of these tragedies.
In February, Shiv Prasad Dhruv, a young man feeding street dogs in Raipur (Chhattisgarh region in central India was murdered. For feeding a dog. That's it. That's all he did.
Days later, a woman feeder in Gwalior (200 miles south of Delhi) was violently assaulted.
The Dil Se Protest, planned as a peaceful Valentine's Day gathering to demand humane policies and ABC (animal birth control for community dogs) implementation, was cancelled—not in defeat, but in solidarity. Delhi's animal welfare leadership came together to respond to this tragedy with the gravity it deserved.
The demands remain standing:
- FIRs (First Information Report by police) in all cases of feeder violence
- Supreme Court to take suo motu (on the court’s own accord) cognizance of these attacks
- Accountability for those who incite and enable this violence
Shiv Prasad's life mattered. Every feeder's safety matters. #CompassionIsNotACrime
February 2026 Grant Disbursements 💛
This February, Help Animals India disbursed grants to four incredible programs—from the hills of Darjeeling to the streets of Delhi.
PFA Agra received support for large animal fodder and their ABC program - keeping many horses, donkeys, mules, and cattle fed and cared for, while continuing the vital sterilisation work that keeps Agra's street dog population stable and healthy.
PFA Uttarakhand received continued support for their Happy Home Sanctuary, a no-tie, no-cage refuge in the hills of Uttarakhand caring for 300+ rescued animals, including horses, mules, goats, hens, and cats who once faced slaughter, abandonment, or exhaustion.
PFA Delhi received grants disbursed across India—supporting People For Animals' wide-reaching network of hospitals, rescue teams, and ABC programs that span the length and breadth of the country.
And in an exciting new chapter, DGAS – Darjeeling Goodwill Animal Shelter – received funding for a major project focused entirely on community and street cats. From sterilisation to care, DGAS is tackling feline welfare in Darjeeling with the seriousness it deserves.
Four grants. Four cities. One mission.
Rescues That Kept Us Going 🐾
Rani - Varanasi For Animals (VFA): A small puppy arrived at VFA with her intestines outside her body after a serious accident. Volunteer Ajay raced her to the shelter, and the veterinary team fought to save her. Today, Rani is healthy and living with Ajay—safe, loved, and thriving. One of the hardest cases VFA has handled. One of their most beautiful outcomes.
The Blast Survivor - Karuna Society for Animals and Nature: Twenty kilometers from Karuna Society, a dog walked into a dynamite trap laid in crop fields. He survived but lost half his tongue and suffered permanent injuries. Two months on, he's recovering slowly, bravely. Karuna built him a custom feeding stand so he can eat with dignity. This wasn't an accident—it was the cost of cruelty used in the name of crop protection.
From Slaughter to Sanctuary : CUPA's Large Animal and Livestock Rescue & Rehabilitation Centre (LAARC) in Bangalore welcomed a goat with nothing but fear and a death sentence he never deserved.
Today, he grazes peacefully, unbothered and unchained, in a sanctuary that sees him for exactly what he is—a life worth saving.
LAARC exists for animals like him. Rescued from slaughter, abandonment, and cruelty, they find their way to LAARC and discover something most farmed animals never get: a future. These sanctuaries don't run on compassion alone; they run on consistent, committed funding.
Every donation keeps the gates open.
World Wildlife Day - March 3rd 🌿
World Wildlife Day was on March 3rd and this year, we're asking you to think beyond the forests and national parks.
India's wildlife isn't just tigers and rhinos in protected sanctuaries. It's the leopard navigating Pune's urban fringe. The snake displaced by construction. The owl blinded by a Diwali cracker. The deer wandering into a highway. Urban wildlife is India's most vulnerable and most overlooked population.
Organisations we support like RESQ CT (Pune), WRRC (Bangalore) , Team Prayas (Surat) and many more are on the frontlines of urban wildlife rescue—operating 24/7, responding to emergencies, rehabilitating injured animals, and releasing them back to the wild. They work relentlessly, often with minimal resources, because the calls never stop coming.
Support the teams that show up for India's wild neighbors—the ones living not in forests, but right alongside us.
Devi's Road to Recovery 🐘
India has an estimated 2,500 to 3,500+ captive elephants. Most will never know what open ground feels like beneath their feet.
Devi was one of them.
Confined in a small concrete enclosure in an urban setting for years, she arrived at WRRC's Elephant Care Facility (ECF) carrying the full weight of prolonged neglect, severe nutritional deficiencies, painful foot abscesses, and emotional trauma that no animal should ever have to endure.
But healing, it turns out, is stubborn.
Since her rescue, Devi has been discovering things that should have always been hers—open ground, mud baths, grass underfoot, and, for the very first time, the company of other elephants. Slowly, tentatively, she is learning what it means to simply be an elephant.
Her recovery is ongoing. It will take time. But every mud bath, every interaction with her new companions, every day without chains is proof that even the deepest wounds can heal when given the right environment and care.
Help Animals India is proud to support WRRC and their extraordinary work at the ECF—because elephants like Devi deserve more than survival. They deserve to thrive.
👉 Support WRRC and the six ladies under their care
A Note as We Head Into Summer in Parts of India Temps Already Crossing 40 C (104F) 🌡️
A challenging summer is arriving early across India this year—and with it, a fresh set of problems for our grantees on the ground.
Rising temperatures mean more heatstroke cases, more dehydrated street animals, more emergency rescues. Our teams will be stretched thin and working harder than ever.
But there's another worry compounding this one. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is already creating fuel shortages and rationing fears across India. Fuel isn't a luxury for our grantees; it’s a lifeline. It gets rescue teams to injured animals. It runs the generators that keep hospitals operational. It cooks the food that feeds hundreds of rescued animals every single day.
If fuel becomes scarce or unaffordable, rescues get delayed. Animals go hungry. Lives are lost.
Our grantees may also need to stockpile feed before supply chains tighten and prices spike—because when summer hits hard, the need doesn't pause to wait for logistics to catch up.
This is the moment to donate generously and help them prepare.
Every rupee given now goes further—stocking shelves, filling fuel tanks, and ensuring that when the heat peaks and the shortages bite, our grantees are ready.
February asked a lot of us. It asked us to grieve and celebrate in the same breath, to hold anger and hope simultaneously, to keep showing up for animals even when the world makes it dangerous to do so.
We did. We will. We must.
Thank you for being part of this. For reading, for sharing, for donating, for caring.
See you next time with fresh rescues, and the relentless belief that every life matters. In the meantime we post almost every day please follow us on social media!
With love and determination,
The Help Animals India Team
#TogetherWeCan #MakeADifference #HelpAnimalsIndia
