In Crisis and in Heat, Compassion Cannot Wait
When Crisis Strikes, Compassion Must Move Fast
Across India and Nepal, Help Animals India’s grantees continue to do the hard, urgent, and often unseen work of protecting injured, displaced, and orphaned animals. Since our last newsletter, that has meant responding to tragedy in Nepal, helping animals survive extreme summer heat, advancing humane dog population management, supporting long-term sanctuary care, and amplifying compassion in unexpected places, even on the football field.
Here are some of the stories that have defined this period.
Nepal’s displaced animals cannot be forgotten
When tragedy struck Nepal, animals suffered too.
As people were displaced and homes were demolished, countless animals were left behind — frightened, hungry, injured, traumatised, and suddenly without the fragile safety they had depended on. In moments like these, community animals become the invisible victims of upheaval.
Help Animals India’s Nepal grantees, Animal Nepal and Sneha's Care, have been on the ground helping the displaced animals of Nepal; rescuing those trapped in rubble and riverbanks, feeding those still stranded, treating injuries, and trying to bring relief in the middle of chaos. We saw heartbreak, but we also saw courage: a woman saving a dog while her own home was being torn down; a mother dog and pup rescued from rubble in Manohara; rescuers showing up every time for animals who had nowhere else to turn.
This emergency also emphasizes something vital: humane ABC (animal birth control) and anti-rabies work matter before disaster strikes. Fewer births into life on the street mean fewer animals forced to suffer when displacement, demolition, or tragedy hits. Emergency response saves lives in the moment. ABC helps prevent suffering on a larger scale.
Please help us to continue to support emergency care critical work for displaced animals in Nepal.
In brutal summer heat, a bowl of water can mean life
The heat is unforgiving, and the voiceless are the first to suffer.
This summer, grantees across India, including Varanasi for Animals and many others have been placing water bowls wherever possible for cows, dogs, birds, and other street and community animals trying to survive under a scorching sun. They are stepping out with water, food, and compassion for animals with no shelter, no voice, and often no one looking out for them.
It is such a simple act. But in extreme heat, simple acts save lives.
This is also a reminder that all of us can help: put a bowl of clean water outside your home, shop, office, or apartment building. Share what you can. A little water, a little shade, a little kindness for an animal in distress, that can mean survival.
Support our grantees as they continue this life-saving summer work across India and Nepal.
At the same time, the wider crisis triggered by war has driven up fuel and other essential costs in India, making this work even harder. For many grantees, every ambulance run now costs more — and when animals are injured, displaced, or in distress, those rising costs can mean the difference between delay and rescue.
For India only - Breaking News on May 19, 2026!
The latest development from the Supreme Court of India today is that the court refused to modify or recall its earlier order on removing stray dogs from public institutions and public spaces such as schools, hospitals, bus stands, railway stations, and similar areas. We can only support INCREASED efforts for animal birth control so that less dogs will suffer mass removal to lock up in badly run shelters!
Compassion on the field: Rinchen Lhaze brings kindness to the game
Compassion can travel far when it is carried with conviction and Rinchen Lhaze is helping carry it onto the football field.
A volunteer with Help Animals India grantee Tibetan Volunteers for Animals (TVA) and a sportsman with the TDL Sports Association, Rinchen has been using football matches in South India to share a simple but powerful message: kindness matters, to animals and to the world we share. With signboards sponsored by Help Animals India placed around the ground at matches, that message reaches players, spectators, and communities in a space usually defined by speed, passion, and competition.
The slogans are clear and compassionate: One video from last year shows a memorable moment, yes, but only one part of a much bigger story.
What matters even more is that he continues to bring these messages to match after match, making compassion a visible presence on the sidelines and around the field.
🌱 Go Vegan
🐕 For Animals
🌍 For Earth
❤️ For Your Health
🍜 Fuelled by Plants
Through TVA’s work in Tibetan communities, and through Rinchen Lhaze’s steady advocacy, the idea takes root in a powerful way: strength and kindness do not stand apart. They belong together. And sometimes, a football ground can become a place where people encounter not just sport, but a gentler way of seeing animals too.
From rescue to refuge: long-term care matters too
Rescue is only the beginning.
At the Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation Centre (WRRC)’s Elephant Care Facility (ECF), rescued elephants receive the lifelong care they need after exploitation, pain, and neglect. Help Animals India supports these rescued elephants which costs about $500 a week or $2000 a month PER ELEPHANT in fodder, medicines, veterinary care, handlers, shelter maintenance, and daily support.
And elsewhere, grantees continue to step in for animals who need more than a quick rescue: from goats saved from sacrifice and given sanctuary, to wild animals being treated and released back to their habitats. Because sanctuary, rehabilitation, and recovery all take resources. Compassion does not end at rescue.
RESQCT: protecting wildlife, preventing panic
In Maharashtra, three leopard cubs, including a rare albino, were found in sugarcane fields and safely secured by RESQ Charitable Trust (RESQCT) in close coordination with the Nashik Forest Department before being reunited with their mother.
It was a striking rescue, but also a reminder of something larger: as human-animal conflict rises, situations like these are becoming more common. The safest response for both people and wildlife is not panic, not aggression, and not vigilante action, but distance, calm, and trained intervention.
For nearly two decades, RESQCT has been rendering yeoman service in helping animals trapped in human habitation, bringing skill, experience, and compassion to some of the most difficult rescue situations on the ground.
Please help keep this work moving
Whether it is emergency rescue in Nepal, water bowls in deadly heat, ABC (animal birth control for dogs and cats) drives, elephant care, wildlife response, or everyday feeding and treatment, this work is only possible because people choose not to look away.
Please donate to support Help Animals India’s grantees across India and Nepal. Your support helps fund emergency response, feeding, treatment, rescue, transport, sterilisation, vaccination, and long-term care for animals who urgently need it.
With gratitude,
Help Animals India
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