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

  • Exclusive: Report finds Natural England has created no new SSSIs, which protect areas from development, since 2023

    The government’s wildlife watchdog for England is failing to save nature because it has stopped giving protection to rare wildlife and habitats, according to a new report.

    No new sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) have been designated by Natural England since 2023. SSSIs are nationally or internationally important places for rare wildlife and habitats. Without the designation, endangered species can be at risk of being lost to development.

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  • One way to pay for wildlife conservation is to allow the rich to bag a few animals for high prices. But critics see this approach as an exercise in neocolonialism

    You can kill almost anything if you’re willing to pay. Big or small. Land, water or air. Ten a penny or one of the last of its kind. There’s nearly always a way, though it might not make you popular. The Niassa special reserve, a vast reservation larger than Switzerland, stretches for 190 miles along the northern rim of Mozambique, taking in 4.2m hectares of woodland and rivers. The reserve, one of the world’s largest protected areas, is home to elephants, leopards, hyenas, zebras and about 1,000 wild lions.

    That word, however: protected. It applies to some, but not all, of its animal inhabitants. Each year, a specific number are set aside for sacrifice, for the greater good. Not long ago,I joined an expedition in Niassa, with one of Africa’s top game-hunting companies.

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  • ‘Stone age’ system of booking cross-border rail tickets holding back climate action by consumers, says thinktank

    Europe’s “stone age” system of booking train tickets makes it needlessly difficult for travellers to avoid polluting flights, a report has found.

    Booking equivalent train tickets is “difficult or impossible” on almost half of the EU’s busiest international air routes, analysis from the Transport & Environment (T&E) thinktank shows.

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  • UK’s Rare Breeds Survival Trust says calf numbers of white park cattle last year were less than two-thirds of 2022 level

    An ancient breed of cattle whose ancestors are thought to have accompanied the Celts as they were pushed to Britain’s fringes by the Romans has been designated as urgently at risk by a UK conservation charity.

    Publishing its 2026 watchlist on Tuesday, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust moved white park cattle to its “priority” category as new calf numbers sank last year to less than two-thirds of their 2022 level.

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  • The country is seeing an increase in human-wildlife conflict as the number of megafauna, including rhinos and tigers, grows. But there are efforts to tackle the problem around Chitwan national park through education and training

    The tourists lining the steep embankment buzzed with excitement, phones out, snapping away in the twilight as a wild Indian rhinoceros grazed below the Nepali village of Sauraha. Climbing to the main street, the rhino ambled down the middle of the road.

    Local people warned tourists to give it plenty of space. All manner of wheeled vehicles slowed, then passed. The rhino turned its horn at a cyclist passing too close, triggering gasps from the assembled crowd.

    A manager uses torchlight to guide a wild Indian rhinoceros through the grounds of his hotel in Sauraha

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  • Chemicals known to affect brains of common garden birds, and to kill unborn chicks, found in most feather samples

    Conservationists have called for restrictions on pet flea treatments after research found songbird feathers widely contaminated with substances that can damage the birds’ brains and kill unborn chicks.

    Almost every feather sample tested from five common species of UK garden birds contained either permethrin, imidacloprid or fipronil – all insecticides that are banned for agricultural use but still common in pet tick and flea treatments.

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  • Knotbury, Staffordshire: A truly special dawn, when last night’s ice lingered on everything, and I was joined by no fewer than six ring ouzels

    As I drove to this tiny moorland hamlet, the dawn sky looked so grey that I imagined it must have 100% cloud cover. Actually, there was none, and as the blue slowly crept in overhead, I could see that frost was everywhere.

    I also realised that there was no breeze and every sound seemed distilled, so I stopped by the first farm to record my blackbird. He has mastered the sweetest imitations of displaying golden plovers, but this was my first chance to capture them. And there he was, doing his plover notes, but throwing in snippets of curlew as extras, and when he stood in profile at the roof apex, singing, bill wide, throat feathers spiked against the heavens, I knew the morning would be magical.

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  • Kerbside wheelie bins have been used in Australia since the 1980s but the recycling rate is stuck at 44%. Will another recycling bin make a difference?

    There’s no garbage truck in Kamikatsu.

    Instead, the Japanese town’s 1,400 residents take their waste to the local recycling centre, or “Gomi station”, and sort it themselves into more than 40 different categories.

    Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

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  • As the rising number of vessels in the icy waters increases the risk of environmental disaster, scientists are scrambling to find potential solutions

    Last winter, inside the subarctic Churchill Marine Observatory in Canada, scientists embarked on an experiment they hoped would result in a gamechanging remedy for polluted Arctic waters. They released130 litres of diesel into an ice-covered pool filled with raw seawater pumped in from Hudson Bayand naturally occurring oil-eating microbes. The technique had been used successfully during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the scientists wanted to see if they could break down oil in colder waters.

    The microbes were sluggish in response and the population showed little change after the first three weeks, says Eric Collins, a microbiologist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, who led the project. But that did not last. “When we went back eight weeks later, we saw that there was a big change,” Collins says. “One particular bacterium grew to a very high abundance in the tanks and it was clear that it was feeding on the oil.” But two months is too long to wait should an oil spill occur. Time is of the essence.

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  • Sarah Finch’s fight against drilling led to a landmark ruling on fossil fuel emissions – and a leading environmental prize

    It started with a notice in the local newspaper and ended with winning one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes. In 2010, Sarah Finch was flicking through the local planning notices when one caught her eye: a proposal to drill for oil at Horse Hill in Surrey, just outside Crawley, over the border in West Sussex, 6 miles (10km) from her home.

    Surrey is not the kind of place one expects to find the oil industry. It’s a county of little villages, farms, woods and commuter railway stations. Its semi-rural landscape stretches off towards the horizon in a typically English green patchwork. It is difficult to envision it littered with nodding donkey pumpjacks and gas flares.

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