Worldwide Vets Saving Animals in War Zones

Worldwide Vets Saving Animals in War Zones

By Louisa Woodville

Dr. Gemma Campling, a veterinarian based in Zimbabwe, has been on a mission to save animals, including those in war-torn regions since graduating from the University of Nottingham, England, in 2014.

Dr. Gemma Campling working on a leopard before its transport from Odessa, Ukraine to Colorado.

“In 2010 I launched Worldwide Vets [out of London]; we started very small, working with organizations that I had met traveling,” she said about her nonprofit, which initially focused on South Africa, Zimbabwe, Egypt, and India.

Today it also serves Peru, Costa Rica, Thailand, the Ukraine and, starting in January, 2023, Iran. The goal is to sponsor vets to visit these areas, provide medications and surgical equipment to charity clinics, to train local vets and technicians, and provide volunteer opportunities to study abroad.

“We set up a system whereby vet students and new graduates can come and get training at a clinic that needs support so they themselves are providing handson help to the charities,” said the 34-year-old vet. ”In paying for their visit, those funds support the organization which is then able to buy medication, keeps vets employed, and enable them to reach out and help more animals than they would be able to do if there weren’t volunteers.”

Dr. Campling came to the Middleburg area a few months ago at the invitation of Dr. Kent Allen of Virginia Equine Imaging. She spoke to an appreciative group about her team’s indefatigable efforts to save horses, dogs, cats, and even lions trapped in the Ukraine.

“A missile drops and explodes small fragments of metal shrapnel, and it blows out for hundreds of meters,” she said, showing a photograph of her operating in a garage. “We don’t know where and when they’re coming. But I have a good team that I work with and solid military backup.”

Connections with the Ukrainian army and an organization of ex-British soldiers, Breaking the Chains, provide security and manpower.

Despite the danger, Worldwide Vets has managed to save hundreds of animals. Today about 20 Worldwide Vet horse veterinarians are stationed in northwest Ukraine—a region still fraught with difficulties.

“I was literally moved to tears at the plight of horses, dogs and cats caught in the middle of man-made conflicts in Ukraine and other places around the world,” said Donna Stutzman of The Plains. “I believe that this organization is worthy and one which would be of particular interest in our Middleburg community.”

One of Worldwide Vet’s most spectacular saves involved nine lions threatened by starvation in a Biopark in Odessa. Dr. Campling, with the help of British Army veterans, successfully relocated the big cats to a Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, Colorado via Romania. The animals crossed three borders over 72 hours to reach safety and ultimately, their permanent location in an 800-acre park.

Ukrainian dogs are a focus for Worldwide Vets.

Worldwide Vets also supports horse and other animal owners forced to flee war zones and abandon their charges. Her team feeds their horses, financed through a grant system in place. All donations Worldwide Vets receive go directly to purchase feed and medicine.

Funds are always in short supply. A mobile veterinary unit was donated to Worldwide Vets, but there’s no truck to pull it and not enough money to buy one. Dr. Campling is on a constant mission to keep donations steady so her non-profit can purchase feed, medicine, supplies, as well as provide the small stipend some vets receive.

Locating feed for these Ukrainian-based animals—most of them displaced—is a challenge, given that there’s little to no grass for grazing animals, especially now in winter.

Because so many animals roam free in the southeast Ukraine, neutering is also a top priority. One video shows Dr. Campling neutering a cat as missiles explode around her; she stands in a rectangular hole, the kind a mechanic situates stands in to change a car’s oil. This makeshift garage is just one of her operating theaters. Electrical power is sporadic; at times she has had to operate in the dark using a headlamp.

“It’s shattering to witness the suffering of Ukraine’s animals in the chaos of this terrible war, and very easy to fall into a paralysis of despair,” said Betsy Manierre of The Plains. “But Gemma Campling’s organization provides us with an efficient, practical way to help them. Her energy and raw courage are inspiring.”

Asked how she keeps herself from despair by the magnitude of if all, Dr. Campling said, “Through working with worldwide vets for ten years, you can never achieve everything you want to, and it’s the drive to help more animals that keeps you in the game. Every human and every team has a physical limit on what they can achieve. But I know that what we’re achieving in the fact of adversity is changing the lives of thousands of animals and people. So we just take it one day at a time.”

For details on how to donate: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/helphorsesinUkraine