Tapa Srilanka

TAPA’s mission is to improve the welfare of the animals and people of Sri Lanka. We spay/neuter and vaccinate animals in the tsunami zone to humanely control the dog population, which also reduces the threat of rabies (Sri Lanka has over 100 cases of human rabies annually), reduce the incidence of dog bites (especially to small children), and to reduce animal cruelty by those fearing rabies.

The Tsunami Animal-People Alliance is a longer term response to the Great Tsunami of 26 Dec 2004. TAPA is a registered charity with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Social Affairs (Registration FL 109505) and is made possible through the generosity of good people such as you!

Our tented mobile field clinic moves from village to village in the tsunami zone. The ten member TAPA team, all very well trained and well experienced Sri Lankans, includes three vets and sterilises about 500 dogs per month. Owned dogs are brought by owners and returned after surgery. Community/street dogs are caught using large butterfly nets (safer than catch poles), sterilized, and after recovery, returned to the exact place where taken in order to guard their territory and keep unsterilised (and unvaccinated) dogs out, thus creating a healthy and stable population (Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return). We also sterilise cats brought to us, but the focus is on dogs as they are the primary vector of rabies making them the most at risk.

We strive to sterilise at least 75% of the dogs in the community (magic number thought to result in zero population growth), and vaccinate 75% of the dogs in a community against rabies, the level required to produce “herd immunity”.

TAPA also iimplements education programmes in the communities served. Our target audience includes kindergarten through adult. We explain facts and myths about rabies, how to avoid dog bites, responsible pet ownership, and that animals must be treated humanely.

While the devastation brought by the tsunami is no longer front page news, the recovery process will take years, as will recovery from the recently ended civil war that lasted almost 30 years. The non-profit Tsunami Animal-People Alliance is dedicated to reducing rabies and dog bites in the disaster zone and refugee settlements of Sri Lanka by the combination of vaccination and sterilisation. Without sterilisation, new generations of animals needing vaccination will continue to be produced. Sterilisation and vaccination provide humane animal population control that reduces rabies and dog bites, mitigates the threat of mass killing of animals, and improves the welfare of both the people and the animals of Sri Lanka.

What We Do
The Tsunami Animal-People Alliance operates a field sterilisation clinic that moves within the tsunami disaster zone and the former war zone, including refugee settlements, providing rabies vaccinations, sterilisations, and general vet treatment to animals who are individually owned, community owned, or true strays. The Sri Lankan people have been very receptive to our Sri Lankan teams’ helping their communities and their animals. Our goal is to vaccinate and sterilise five to six thousand animals per year, educate regarding responsible pet ownership, and raise awareness of the link between the welfare of the animals in a community and the welfare of the people.