ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Eco Hvar's aims for environmental protection, and related articles.

Read more...

maria lidija

Health

Eco Hvar's ideas for encouraging positive health, plus related articles

Read more...

Animals

Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles

Read more...

ANIMAL WELFARE: What We Do

Published in For the Common Good

We do our best to help animals in need. This is an overview of what we do, despite our limited resources. We aim to do more!

Two rescued puppies (2018) Two rescued puppies (2018)

Every year, Eco Hvar receives inquiries, complaints and pleas for help about lost, abandoned and ill-treated animals. Some of the inquiries come from islanders, the majority from Croatian and foreign guests. Most relate to dogs and cats on Hvar, but they have also included donkeys, horses and birds. A few inquiries come in from other islands and even distant parts of mainland Croatia.

Top ten topics:

1. Stray dogs wandering loose, looking hungry and lost

2. Lost dogs, reported by owners or finders

3. Dogs living in squalor without proper shelter from the sun, and without regular food and water

4. Dogs kept on a chain, barking and/or howling non-stop day and night

5. Dogs creating a nuisance, not kept under proper control

6. Cats abandoned in tourist resorts which close at the end of the summer season

7. Cats multiplying out of control

8. Tiny kittens abandoned and hungry

9. Sick cats and dogs

10. Cats making a mess in private or public places

What we do depends on the circumstances of each case:

1. We check the details of the situation, as far as we can, by visiting the place, and/or by making inquiries with local people

2. We contact the relevant authorities: the local Warden, local Vet, Veterinary Inspectors and/or Police

3. We take lost dogs to the Vet to check whether they are micro-chipped

4. We try to locate the owners of loose, roaming dogs

5. We try to find ways of influencing owners who keep their dogs in bad conditions

6. When possible, we take in abandoned dogs  and try to find them homes

7. If necessary, we take unwanted dogs to the No-kill Animal Shelter (Animalis Centrum) in Kaštela near Split, which has an excellent success rate in finding them homes, and keeps us informed about the status of dogs from the island

8. As much as we can, we support other Charities and individuals working for animal welfare

9. We encourage cat and dog owners to have their pets sterilized

10. We encourage dog and cat owners to clean up after their animals (and other people's if necessary)

11. We try to help street cats, by working on local solutions for those in need of food and care

12.We encourage and support individuals who want to help animals in need as much as we can

13. We take sick dogs or cats to the Vet, if possible

14. We inform the people who have contacted us about animals in need so that they understand the relevant laws which govern the situation; we explain what action we have taken (or why we have been unable to do anything), and what the outcome has been (if any)

Rescued puppy examined by Vet Dr. Mirej, February 2018. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

VETERINARY SURGERIES ON hVAR

Hvar Town; Specijalistička praksa za male životinje. Address: Šime Buzolić Tome 15a, Hvar, Croatia; Tel 021 880 022. On Facebook; email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Stari Grad:  Veterinarska ambulanta Lota Stari Grad. Address: Put Rudine 3, Stari Grad, Croatia. Tel: 021 244 337.  On Facebook. email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 HELP IS ALWAYS NEEDED!

As there is no Animal Shelter for unwanted dogs or cats on the island, we are very limited in what we can do. However, the revised Law on Animal Protection (Zakon o zaštiti životinja NN 102 /2017) which came into force in October 2017 has made a difference: local authorities are now obliged to take greater action for animal welfare. This has helped the work of Charities like ours. In particular, we have benefited from the excellent services provided by the Bestie Foundation which is responsible for the Animalis Centrum Animal Shelter in Kaštel Sućurac. Much remains to be done, so please support us, in whatever way you can! In 2024 a special appeal is being launched in aid of the Bestie Foundation:

Twelve good reasons to help the Bestie Animal Protection Foundation

PLEASE DONATE!

Details for donations:

Via the bank:
Zaklada Bestie
Kukuljevićeva 1, 21000 Split
Otp banka
IBAN: HR9324070001100371229
SWIFT: OTPVHR2X

Paypal donate button: https://www.paypal.me/ZakladaBestie

© Vivian Grisogono MA(Oxon) 2018, 2024.

More in this category: « Dogs: how to help when needed
You are here: Home For the Common Good ANIMAL WELFARE: What We Do

Eco Environment News feeds

  • Ministers’ proposals to tackle ‘forever chemicals’ fail to match tougher stance taken in Europe, say experts

    Environmental campaigners have criticised a “crushingly disappointing” UK government plan to tackle “forever chemicals”, which they warn risks locking in decades of avoidable harm to people and the environment.

    The government said its Pfas action plan set out a “clear framework” of “coordinated action … to understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure”.

    Continue reading...

  • Chagossian people would be allowed to fish in area that has teemed with life since ban was introduced in 2010

    One of the most precious marine reserves in the world, home to sharks, turtles and rare tropical fish, will be opened to some fishing for the first time in 16 years under the UK government’s dealto hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

    Allowing non-commercial fishing in the marine protected area (MPA) is seen as an essential part of the Chagossian people’s return to the islands, as the community previously relied on fishing as their main livelihood. But some conservationists have raised the alarm, as nature has thrived in the waters of the Indian Ocean since it was protected from fishing.

    Continue reading...

  • Sector bounces back as consumers focus on provenance and healthy eating, but is still well behind Europe

    Consumers searching for healthy food from trusted sources have fuelled the UK organic market’s biggest boom in two decades, according to vegetable box seller Riverford.

    The delivery business, which sells meat, cheese, cookbooks and recipe boxes alongside vegetables, recorded a 6% increase in sales to £117m in the year to May 2025, as the UK organic food and drink market grew by almost 9% in that year, according to new figures from the Soil Association. The strong growth, significantly outpacing the wider food market, helped the employee-owned business give a £1.1m bonus to workers.

    Continue reading...

  • Priestcliffe, Derbyshire:The limestone walls in this parish are festooned with luminous mosses, in a variety that’s often beyond our comprehension

    The word bryophyte refers to a group of plants that may have colonised terrestrial Earth almost half a billion years ago. They need water to reproduce sexually and they love rain. So it’s hardly surprising that Britain is an important archipelago for them, with the two main groups, liverwort and mosses, represented by nearly 300 and 770 species respectively. This is a 20th of all the world’s bryophytes.

    Perhaps the best summary of the British public’s sense of the group was offered by a friend recently, who said that he hadn’t been aware that there was more than one bryophyte. Moss doesn’t occupy our conscious minds. It lives at the periphery, trembling on the edge of our sense of things. Especially when it rains, because moss is then even more luminous.

    Continue reading...

  • Volunteer workers say increasing case numbers and dozens of dead birds raise fears spread is wider than recorded

    Members of the public and charity volunteers are working to contain a suspected outbreak of bird flu among swans in the Thames Valley, amid signs that confirmed cases are continuing to rise.

    Since October, 324 cases of bird flu in swans have been recorded by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha), which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Of these, 39 were recorded in the first four weeks of 2026 alone.

    Continue reading...

  • With some of Ukraine’s most valuable biodiversity sites and science facilities under occupation, experts at Sofiyivka Park in Uman are struggling to preserve the country’s natural history

    In the basement laboratory of the National Dendrological Park Sofiyivka, Larisa Kolder tends to dozens of specimens of Moehringia hypanicabetween power outages. Just months earlier, she and her team at this microclonal plant propagation laboratory in Uman, Ukraine, received 23 seeds of the rare flower.

    Listed as threatened in Ukraine’s Red Book of endangered species, Moehringiagrows nowhere else in the wild but the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine. Of those 23 seeds, only two grew into plants that Kolder and her colleagues could clone in their laboratory, but now her lab is home to a small grove of Moehringiaseedlings, including 80 that have put down roots in a small but vital win for biodiversity conservation amid Russia’s war with Ukraine.

    Continue reading...

  • A US judge will decide if, as research suggests, a chemical tyre additive is harming endangered fish species

    Last week, a district judge in San Francisco, California, presided over a three-day trial brought by west coast fishers and conservationists against US tyre companies. The fishers allege that a chemical additive used in tyres is polluting rivers and waterways, killing coho salmon and other fish. If successful, the case could have implications far beyond the United States.

    Continue reading...

  • Support from more than 20 countries propels National Trust to its target to protect chalk figure and local wildlife

    It feels like a very British monument: a huge chalk figure carved into a steep Dorset hillside that for centuries has intrigued lovers of English folklore and legend. But an appeal to raise money to help protect the Cerne giant – and the wildlife that shares the landscape it towers over – has shown that its allure stretches far beyond the UK.

    Donations have flooded in from more than 20 countries including Australia, Japan and Iceland, and on Tuesday, the National Trust confirmed it had reached its fundraising target to buy land around the giant.

    Continue reading...

  • Events such as Storm Chandra take a terrible toll on ecosystems, but nature can be part of the solution for mitigating flood waters

    “The flood waters are only good for scavenger species,” says Steve Hussey, searching hard for a silver lining to last week’s deluges brought by Storm Chandra. When the waters recede, crows and ravens will feast on the carrion of hedgehogs, dormice and other small animals unable to escape the rising water, he says.

    “It sounds very apocalyptic, doesn’t it?” says Hussey, a communications officer with the Devon Wildlife Trust.

    Continue reading...

  • Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists – and the release of Juan Orlando Hernández has reinforced its ‘crisis of impunity’, say critics

    When Donald Trump announced that he would pardon the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, only the second world leader to be convicted of drug trafficking, Anna*, an environmental defender, was shocked.

    In 2022, Hernández, also known as JOH, was extradited to the US and later convicted, along with his brother, on drug trafficking and weapons charges. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle more than 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US, becoming the first Honduran head of state to be tried and sentenced abroad for running a narco state. He was also accused of grave human rights violations.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds