Census 2010

It's been busy here at the clinic with a lot of volunteers coming to help us look after the animals that have been placed in EHF's care. The combination of lots of volunteers and the need to start our second island-wide census made it the perfect time to rent bikes and set off from the clinic to go house to house to count Rarotonga canines.

The purpose of the census is to document the number of dogs on the island and the percentage of that number that EHF has spayed or neutered. One of the primary goals of the Esther Honey Foundation is to humanely reduce and stabilize the number of dogs and cats on the island through desexing. Reducing the number of homeless, wandering and unwanted animals will result in benefits to the animals, the community and even the local economy.

To measure our progress in reaching this goal, we check whether the dogs we are counting have been desexed or not and mark it down on a tally. To document that the dog population is stable or decreasing we need to confirm that a minimum of 70% of the dogs are desexed.

Graham, Janie, and Rachel, all from New Zealand, have been our official counters when they are not working in the clinic. It's been a week and a half since we started and the three volunteers have covered the area of Arorangi, one of the most populated areas of Rarotonga. Being out in the community has allowed them to meet more locals and to drum up additional support and surgery candidates. They have been scheduling untreated dogs to be picked up and brought into the clinic for surgery! Their success in rounding up new patients has kept our clinic veterinary team very busy.

So far it's been a great way to meet locals, communicate what we are doing and let people know how our work can help. Great thanks goes out to all the volunteers who have come to help EHF in this effort whether by biking from house to house to count dogs, or by staying at the clinic to treat current patients and those dogs coming in thanks to census takers! THANK YOU!!

In the picture above, on their bikes, are Rachel, Janie, Graham and Beth, all from Massey in New Zealand.