Sale of land puts Waterford animal shelter at risk of closure

A Waterford animal shelter may be forced to shut down or relocate unless it can find €25,000 to buy land that it currently rents.

Deise Animal Sanctuary operates on eight acres in Ballymacarbry. The land is used to keep larger rescue animals such as horses and donkeys, while a wooded area is home to 56 cats.

Animal welfare officer Abby Wood said: “We had a case where a group of lads were terrorising an elderly home — they were outside beating feral cats to death with hurleys. We captured the cats and neutered them.

“If we don’t raise the money to buy the land they will all have to be trapped and moved and I don’t know how they’d respond to that or even where they would go.”

The land also includes a building the shelter was in the process of converting into an education centre.

“For such a little thing as a field, it has quite a knock-on effect for us. We’ve been given a deadline of February 28 to get the money together which is very short notice.

“We try not to ask for money unless we really need to. But this is a special circumstance, we’re running out of options, we really need people’s help.”

Despite expanding their services, the sanctuary has been receiving the same level of Government funding for years — €4,800 annually.

“Don’t get me wrong, it pays off a few bills and we’re happy to have it, but it doesn’t really give us the push we need,” Abby said.

The shelter is organising a number of initiatives to raise the money to buy the land which is owned by a farmer.

People are asked to donate €4 by texting DAS to 50300, or to send a pet selfie to the sanctuary, and nominate five friends to do the same.

deiseanimalsanctuary.org