Kyiv resident Mykhaylo Storozhuk hasn’t switched off his cell phone for two years now.
The reason is that Storozhuk is one of the organizers of Kyiv Animal Rescue Group and emergency calls come in around the clock. His team of 10 volunteers have to be ready, whatever the time or weather, to answer the call of nature in distress.
“We do the same job as Emergency Ministry employees do. The only difference is that people can ask for their help, while animals that need to be rescued can’t ask for themselves,” says rescuer Vadym Starovoytov, as he drives his shabby Soviet -made Volga car toward a forest north of Kyiv on May 6.
The shabby car is stuffed with ropes and animal cages. That evening the rescuers got a call that a young fallow deer had got into a private tennis court and snared its antlers in a tennis net.
“This is our first deer rescue,” Storozhuk says. “No one can ever predict how things will go.”
But all ends well: In a half-hour operation, the deer is free. The rescuers first knock out the animal by two tranquilizer darts, and then cut it free of the net. Regaining its senses, the deer stumbles groggily back into the woods.
To ensure every rescue operation is safe for people and animals, Storozhuk and his team carefully prepare for each call. They consult vets and read books on animal anatomy and psychology.
But there’s only so much theoretical preparation that can be done, and a lot of the job is learned on the hoof, Storozhuk admits.
“I have long practiced at home doing injections on a model hare, but when it comes to the real thing, everything turns out to be a lot harder,” he says.
And it’s impossible to be prepared for everything. Storozhuk is frequently injured – birds peck him painfully, and he’s been bitten by dogs and rodents. But a cat is the most dangerous of all, Storozhuk says with a smile.
“Recently a cat bit me so hard that my arm was swollen for three days,” he said.
The animal rescue team has saved more than 1,000 animals over the two years. The group is not officially registered, but local police and municipal services are aware of its activities and frequently transfer emergency calls reporting animals in distress to the group. There are four or five calls a day. The record number in one day is eleven.
As the seasons change, so do the animals that get themselves in trouble. In spring the volunteers are most busy rescuing cats from trees, while in fall migratory birds that haven’t started their journey south before the bad weather arrives are commonly in need of help. Dogs find themselves in trouble mostly in winter, Storozhuk says, adding that many of the animals could be helped even without his groups assistance, but “most people still are not ready to provide help to unfortunate animals by themselves.”
Storozhuk, although he also works full time as an engineer for city power company Kyivenergo, never turns down requests to save an animal. He says he has loved and felt compassion for animals since his childhood.
“When I was a boy I used to get cats down from trees, so now it’s natural for me to help animals,” he says.
Storozhuk’s care for animals also helped him find love: He met his wife Liuba in 2013 in the attic of a multistory building in Kyiv’s Vynohradar district, where they had both turned up to save some nesting bats – an endangered species.
Since that meeting, the couple have been inseparable. “My wife Liuba also likes animals. We have already sheltered 28 homeless cats and three dogs in our small Kyiv apartment,” Storozhuk says, smiling.
It was Storozhuk’s wife who came up with the idea of organizing the Kyiv Animal Rescue Group. In 2014, the couple started rescuing animals on their own, but since then their team has grown to 10 people – all of whom are ready to save any animal, at any time.
The work is not usually done for free, however. One call to the rescue team costs Hr 200–400 ($8-16), depending on the complexity of the rescue operation. The funds collected are spent on veterinary medicines, new climbing equipment, and fuel, Storozhuk says.
However, the rescuers say that they are ready to save any animal in trouble, even if they know no one will pay them.
“Life itself is precious, no matter whether it is a human’s life, or an animal’s life,” Storozhuk says. n
