Koh Phangan, an island best known for its infamous full moon parties, perhaps doesn’t strike one as the most likely place for an animal shelter. However, Phangan Animal Care for Strays (Pacs) has now been operating for more than 12 years.
Run by westerners, Pacs takes care of the island’s stray animal population, but its use of sterilisation and its focus on strays have not always been supported or understood by locals. Acceptance is growing, as the benefits of using these methods are increasingly visible.
Pacs is run by a small team of permanent staff, but relies mainly on volunteers for its day-to-day activities. The dedication of these animal lovers is admirable, as they work long hours for little or no compensation. The work isn’t always glamorous, much of the day filled with activities such as de-ticking, cleaning kennels and medicating the animals. Some of the animals are found in truly terrible shape, many suffering from severe skin conditions and badly infected wounds.
While nursing care for sick and wounded animals is the main focus of the shelter, surgery is also performed when vets are available to volunteer. To help control the island’s stray dog population, the centre tries to sterilise as many animals as possible, and also has a rabies vaccination programme. The organisation is funded solely through donations, and as such, fundraising and maintaining rapport with the locals is a crucial part of running Pacs. This isn’t always easy.
Growing acepta nce: Pacs takes in Koh Phangan’s strays, nursing sick and wounded animals that would otherwise be left to die on the streets. Top, volunteers cuddle the shelter’s puppies.
According to the director of Pacs, Laura Taylor, the local population doesn’t always understand the motivation behind their: “Many of the local people think we’re crazy. Why come all the way over here to treat these street dogs? If there was a centre for stray rats in London, you’d think the person running it was nuts.” Most Thai people have been brought up with stray dogs causing problems, and the idea of treating them, let alone loving and caring for them, is for many as foreign as the people doing it.
Partly, this different view can be attributed to religion. For Buddhists, a stray dog may be facing its punishment for having been a bad person in a previous life. Moreover, Buddhist beliefs, which generally appear to favour letting nature take its own course, are opposed to methods such as sterilisation and euthanasia. Poisoning stray animal populations, which would seemingly also contradict Buddhist beliefs, is still an accepted method of dealing with the problem in many rural areas, and Pacs deals with these cases on a regular basis.
There are also economic factors in play here, as there may simply not be enough resources to care for all these creatures. However, on Koh Phangan, acceptance of these methods of treating strays is growing due to the shelter’s efforts, as inhabitants are increasingly seeing the benefits of sterilisation and vaccination programmes. The vets on the island who treat owned animals often donate medical supplies and a private clinic now gives Pacs' animals free medical care.
Pacs works hard on maintaining its visibility, with large-scale operations — for example, a sterilisation drive treating more than 100 animals on the island’s Hat Rin beach — allowing people to see what the organisation does and how it benefits them. Maintaining a social media presence is a crucial communication channel, all new incoming cases are immediately posted on Facebook.
Most importantly, though, just talking to people and showing them around the facilities is leading to increased acceptance. Interestingly, the religious community is now lending its support to Pacs, with the island’s monks promoting sterilisation as an alternative to traditional methods of culling stray animal populations.
With far fewer stray dogs on the island’s streets these days, most of the island’s inhabitants are now happy to have the organisation around, many even bringing in sick and wounded strays themselves. Functioning purely on donations and local support, and largely reliant on volunteers, the Pacs seems to have found an effective, sustainable and increasingly accepted way of handling Koh Phangan’s stray dog problem.
