Two military mates have returned from the Ukraine after distributing more than $300,000 of much-needed food, medication, and winter supplies to help save animals impacted by the horrific war.

Australian War Animal Memorial Organisation (AWAMO) founder and president Nigel Allsopp, who is a retired police dog handler, and Toowoomba man Peter Kotzur who is the AWAMO vice president, met with several charities at the Polish border who are helping people and their animals fleeing the conflict zone.

“The whole country is effectively a war zone, and our next project will be to organise the purchase and delivery of a 4WD ute to be used as an animal ambulance and mobile desexing clinic to prevent the next generation of strays,” Mr Allsopp said.

“Their average vehicles are small vans, and they can’t cope with the tasks at hand,” he said.

“Some of the roads near the frontline have been heavily bombed. We had to break through fences and go through farmers’ paddocks to go around the rocket holes.”

Mr Allsopp and Mr Kotzur visited several animal shelters and zoos to see where their fundraised money could be the most help.

“One of the zoos we visited was very well run with lots of exotic animals,” Mr Kotzur said.

“They are running on only 20% of income compared to before the war, but the animals all still need feeding and still need staff to look after them,” he said.

“They were having electricity problems. If the electricity is cut in the middle of winter, the animals only have a few hours before they freeze to death. We bought them a $3,000 generator to help.”

The pair also purchased many behaviour enrichment toys for the zoo animals which were displaying poor behaviour due to their lack of interaction. Mr Allsopp was a zoo keeper in a past career.

Member for Toowoomba South David Janetzki MP said the Ukraine trip was an excellent opportunity for AWAMO to meet with local charities to check they were legitimate.

“Nigel and Peter have hearts of gold and their drive to help animals is inspiring,” Mr Janetzki said.

“Members of the community can be reassured their donations are directly helping animals caught up in this horrific war,” he said.

Mr Allsopp said volunteers were overwhelmed by the number of displaced animals.

“One of the first places we visited was a dog sanctuary 40kms out of Lviv. It is a place of refuge for many dogs that have been transported from the front lines, but it was only built for 50 dogs and currently has around 1,800 dogs there,” Mr Allsopp said.

“The staff are amazing volunteers. They are doing their best, but they are simply overwhelmed,” he said.

“There were only two staff members there and one of them spent all day just preparing food for all the dogs. As you can imagine, there was dog poo everywhere, but no one had any time to pick it up.

“I was swamped by dogs when I entered the compound – they were all trying their best to say in their own way ‘pick me, take me home.’ It has been a while since I had a tear in my eye.”

Mr Allsopp said Ukraine had no RSPCA-type animal welfare organisations so many of these animal shelters were being run by private citizens who do not have the funding, equipment or space to house so many animals.

The pair returned home with a number of planned projects that will help the animals both short term and long term.

“The very same animals we are sending aid to today are breeding and the fear is the population will explode. This will cause not only further food aid but dogs in particular may become a dangerous problem if they revert to a pack to hunt and survive,” Mr Allsopp said.

“Our campaign starts again to raise funds for a mobile desexing vehicle and help UPAWS to establish a free clinic in Lviv to treat animals and act as a temporary shelter,” he said.

Donations can be made by visiting https://gofund.me/55423c36 or direct deposit:
Australian War Animal Memorial Organisation
BSB: 034 139
Account: 221639
Reference: Ukraine Animals Fund
Charity ID: IA41424