- Title: PERSONAL: One nurse's quest to save the dogs and cats of Saipan
- Date: 24th September 2024
- Summary: SAIPAN, NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS (RECENT - SEPTEMBER 11, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE WITH PUMPKIN LOOKING ON) (English) LAUREN CABRERA, ANIMAL HEALTH MANAGER FOR COMMONWEALTH OF NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS (CNMI) GOVERNMENT, BOARD PRESIDENT FOR SAIPAN HUMANE SOCIETY AND GUAM ANIMALS IN NEED, CO-FOUNDER OF BOONIE FLIGHT PROJECT, FOUNDER OF SAIPAN HUMANE SOCIETY, SAYING: "And wi
- Embargoed: 8th October 2024 22:50
- Keywords: Boonie Flight Project Lauren Cabrera Saipan abandoned cats dogs euthanasia homeless rescue shelter strays
- Location: VARIOUS
- City: VARIOUS
- Country: US
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,North America
- Reuters ID: LVA008312310092024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Like thousands of other dogs and cats, Pumpkin had lived on the streets of the tropical island of Saipan, before ending up at the Mayor’s Dog Control Shelter and on a euthanasia list.
She was deemed too traumatized and so not suitable for adoption, unlikely to find a home.
That is where Lauren Cabrera, 35, spotted the dog and decided to rescue her.
A New Hampshire native, Cabrera first moved in 2012 to Saipan, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean,
She worked as a nurse practitioner, treating humans, but she soon realized there was another population that needed her even more.
There are roughly 42,000 human residents of Saipan, and more than 21,000 stray dogs, and thousands of homeless cats.
Cabrera founded the Saipan Humane Society in 2023, and works with the local government to help with the stray population.
Overpopulation and no permanent veterinarian on the island to spay and neuter are the main problems, according to Cabrera and the local government's data.
And with close to 40 percent of Saipan’s residents living under the poverty level, the $50 to $75 cost of a pet’s surgery is not affordable for many.
Saipan is close to Asia, and to get there it usually takes three flights and about 24 hours from the West Coast of mainland United States.
That means there is no easy way to get animals off the island, and so adoption by people in the United States or elsewhere is an extremely rare occurrence.
The only domestic airline that flies to and from Saipan, United Airlines, discontinued its pet shipping program in 2018. Other airlines service the island, but all of them are foreign, and so can't carry pets between two U.S. ports because of the so-called cabotage law that limits foreign transportation services within a country in favor of domestic carriers.
Charter flights, which can transport about 40 dogs and cats at a time, are hard to come by, Cabrera says, as aviation companies don't want to fly to 'the middle of nowhere.'
They are also very expensive. It costs between $3,000 and $4,000 to ship one animal.
But Cabrera doesn't give up.
She co-founded the Boonie Flight Project, an all-volunteer transport-based rescue that has sent 618 dogs from Guam and Saipan to adopters and rescues in the mainland United States.
Cabrera also opened a chapter of the Humane Society in Saipan, and she works as an animal health officer for the local government.
That job takes her to the Saipan Mayor’s Dog Control Shelter to euthanize between twenty to forty dogs and cats every Friday, many of them perfectly healthy, to help control the overpopulation on the island.
"I used to get mad about euthanasia when I first moved out here," says Cabrera. "I was like, 'Why the heck are the shelters euthanizing so many animals? Can't they just save them and find them a home or keep them until they find a home?' And the reality is, no. The shelter Saipan takes in over a thousand animals a year. And we have 40 kennels. The adoption rate is really, really low, like 1 or 2% on Saipan. So then you've got 1,000 dogs. What are you going to do with them?"
Pumpkin escaped that fate and now lives with Cabrera and her Chamorro husband, a member of the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, and their children.
To commemorate other animals she couldn't help, Cabrera started filming them and posting videos to the Boonie Flight Project's TikTok and Instagram accounts in the hope that they would garner attention. Cabrera hopes that with attention will come help, in the form of funds, to allow for more spaying and neutering - and flights out of Saipan, for those lucky enough to find adopters.
"After a euthanasia day, I usually feel pretty depleted," said Cabrera. “It's hard to see so many animals die,” she said.
“All the animals at my house are ones that I saved on euthanasia days, and all the ones at the clinic are from euthanasia days that live there, because we keep a few rescues living there. And I don't know, it's hard, but just focusing on the positives and trying to remind myself that it would be much worse without euthanasia gets me through,” she said.
Cabrera said the local dogs are called boonie dogs, meaning jungle dogs.
“They are descendants from dogs brought over during World War II by U.S. troops and probably dogs that were brought over by Spain or something at some point. But all in all, they are extremely resilient, extremely intelligent. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen a boonie dog on the side of the road waiting for a light to turn red before they cross the road or waiting for traffic to stop," she said.
Cabrera is currently applying to veterinary schools in the mainland U.S. If accepted, she plans to travel back and forth during the school year and maintain her home and family on the island. After graduating, she plans to return to Saipan to work as a veterinarian.
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