About Animals

About Animals

IMPORTANT NOTICE! We have invested a large amount of care and money over several years in setting up our feeding stations. We have designed and financed the cat hutches and placed them in locations with permission from the property owners. This is how they work: 

Miki, a very special kitten, tells the heartwarming story of how he found his ideal family.

What to do if your pet ingests a poisonous substance, or if you come across dead animals and suspect poisoning as the cause.

A forlorn stray cat had the good luck to fall on all four paws at the Petar Hektorović Elementary School in Stari Grad.

A little dog wandering around the centre of Jelsa, lost, bewildered and frightened, had no way of knowing how her luck was about to turn.

The feast day of St. Francis of Assisi is celebrated on October 4th each year, which is also World Animal Day.

Thanks to Jelsa Mayor Nikša Peronja, Jelsa's stray cats have been given a new chance to survive and thrive in peace.

Eco Hvar is sometimes criticized for doing too little - or even nothing - to help the island's innumerable needy cats and kittens. In fact there are lots of residents around the island, locals and incomers, who consistently do their utmost to help.

Lost or abandoned? It's all too easy for a dog to get lost, often much harder to find it.

We are delighted to see our cat feeders being put to good use! The initiative is developing slowly but surely.

Lucky Luki revels joyfully in his explorations of Hvar's boundless beauties. The Galešnik fortress in the hill to the south above Jelsa is one of his regular haunts.

Luki and his human minder Ivica are keeping the old footpaths viable: Jelsa's historic Tor is one of their favourite destinations.

There's nothing Luki likes better than exploring the lesser known areas of Hvar Island. The eastern region is largely overlooked and (mercifully) underdeveloped, so it is perfect territory for Luki and his friends.

Luki and his two-legged pet parent Ivica love their native land deeply and unreservedly.

August 16th is the feast of St. Rocco, the patron saint of dogs.

Dog owners be warned! In Dalmatia's hot summers, dog paws may need protecting.

Sometime in early November 2018, a bitch was dumped by the roadside above Jelsa, not far from the Medical Services Clinic, with her five puppies.

Donkeys have served humankind since time immemorial. The donkey is a symbol of Dalmatia.

Vrisnik is a village which boasts many animals. Goats are among the most prized.

Dogs in a loving home become friends with their owners. They say that anyone who doesn't like animals doesn't like humans either.

Cats and music both give pleasure to many. Combine the two...pure joy for cat and music lovers!

This is the story of a pony who has captivated the hearts of all around him in the quiet inland village of Svirče on Hvar. He is a walking symbol of unconditional love!

The hunting season on Hvar lasts from October to January, the busy season for hunting dogs.

 

On a lovely sunny March day, a lucky puppy visited Jelsa for a coffee break with her new owners.

Luck intervened when a puppy was left to its fate on wasteland near Split on a hot day in July.

Not all dogs live the life of Riley in Dalmatia, but some are luckier than others. Here Rocky tells his story.

Bobi roamed free in Jelsa for several years. His sudden death carries a warning.

The sufferings of Hvar's cats blight an otherwise happy visit to Hvar.

Nola, a type of Siberian husky, had an unpromising start to her young life.

Dona finds a good home, three years on.

Beautiful, intelligent, good-natured and lively, Negra will bring joy to the right owner.

From Skittish Stari Grad Street Dog to Alpha Canine Queen of Dol, Sveta Ana. Evening Lategano of the Suncrokret Body and Soul Retreat in Dol tells the story of Maza's rescue.

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Eco Environment News feeds

  • Known as ‘white gold’, lithium is among the most important mined elements on the planet – ideal for the rechargeable batteries used in tech products. Can Europe’s largest deposit bring prosperity to the local community?

    It looks more like the past than the future. A vast chasm scooped out of a scarred landscape, this is a Cornwall the summer holidaymakers don’t see: a former china clay pit near St Austell called Trelavour. I’m standing at the edge of the pit looking down with the man who says his plans for it will help the UK’s transition to renewable energy and bring back year-round jobs and prosperity to a part of the country that badly needs both. “And if I manage to make some money in the process, fantastic,” he says. “Though that is not what it’s about.”

    We’ll return to him shortly. But first to the past, when this story begins, about 275-280m years ago. “There was a continental collision at the time,” Frances Wall, professor of applied mineralogy at the Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter, explained to me before my visit. This collision caused the bottom of the Earth’s crust to melt, with the molten material rising higher in the crust and forming granite. “There are lots of different types of granite that intrude at different times, more than 10m years or so,” she says. “The rock is made of minerals and, if you’ve got the right composition in the original material and the right conditions, then within those minerals there are some called mica. Some of those micas contain lithium.”

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  • A shortlist of 24 images has been selected for the wildlife photographer of the year people’s choice award. You can vote for your favourite image online. The winner will be announced on 25 March and shown from that date as part of the overall wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, which runs until 12 July at the Natural History Museum in London

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  • Researchers say waste dumping and climate breakdown have contributed to rise in brick, concrete and glass on beaches

    As much as half of some British beaches’ coarse sediments may consist of human-made materials such as brick, concrete, glass and industrial waste, a study has suggested.

    Climate breakdown, which has caused more frequent and destructive coastal storms, has led to an increase in these substances on beaches. Six sites on the Firth of Forth, an estuary on Scotland’s east coast joining the River Forth to the North Sea, were surveyed to better understand the makeup of “urban beaches”.

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  • Paying attention to the calls of our avian neighbours can reduce stress, find scientists in Germany

    Feeling stressed? Try a dose of birdsong to lift the spirits. A new study shows that paying attention to the treetop melodies of our feathered friends can boost wellbeing and bring down stress levels.

    Previous research has shown that people feel better in bird-rich environments, but Christoph Randler, from the University of Tübingen, and colleagues wanted to see if that warm fuzzy feeling translated into measurable physiological changes. They rigged up a park with loudspeakers playing the songs of rare birds and measured the blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol levels (a marker of stress) of volunteers before and after taking a 30-minute walk through the park. Some volunteers experienced the birdsong-enriched environment, some heard just natural birdsong, and some wore noise-cancelling headphones and heard no birdsong. Half of the recruits were asked to pay attention to the birdsong.

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  • Inkpen, Berkshire: We’re paying the price now for a poor grass harvest, and the concern is that it isn’t a one-off bad year

    At this point in the year, when the growing season seems so far away, last summer’s hay harvest is most remembered, sometimes rued. The hottest summer followed the driest spring in over 100 years in southern England. And although making hay while the sun shines is genuinely crucial, rain is critical to growth. Last year produced a very poor harvest, and hay is now running out.

    Traditionally, two cuts are made, in late spring and summer, doubling the yield. It’s an ancient, ingenious and hopeful system, and in the case of meadow hay (rather than single-species ryegrass) it benefits nature, removing nutrient‑laden grass and encouraging biodiversity. But long-term studies show that as our weather patterns change, grass-growing potential has declined greatly over the last 80 years.

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  • 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”.

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  • 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.

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  • With government action stalled and living in ‘inhumane’ conditions, families in San José are making plans to relocate

    In Emilio Peña Delgado’s home, several photos hang on the wall. One shows him standing in front of a statue with his wife and oldest son in the centre of San José and smiling. In another, his two sons sit in front of caricatures from the film Cars. For him, the photos capture moments of joy that feel distant when he returns home to La Carpio, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital.

    Delgado migrated with his family from Nicaragua to Costa Rica when he was 10, as his parents sought greater stability. When he started a family of his own, his greatest hope was to give his children the security he had lacked. But now, that hope is often interrupted by the threat of extreme weather events.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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Eco Health News feeds

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