Fire hits Dubrovnik shelter

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:
DUBROVNIK–Rescuers evacuated 200 dogs from the Drustvo Za
Zastitu Zivotinja dog shelter just ahead of one of the worst of the
midsummer 2007 forest fires that ravaged the Croatian/Serbian border
region.
The shelter occupies a fort dating to Napoleonic times, used
by Serbians who shelled the walled city of Dubrovnik in 1991-1992,
killing about 250 residents. Little changed since the 13th century,
Dubrovnik is a United Nations-designated World Heritage landmark.
“The fire damaged parts of the shelter, but no animals were
injured,” reported Vier Pfoten founder Helmut Dungler on August 8.
Based in Vienna, Austria, Vier Pfoten has helped Drustvo Za Zastitu
Zivotinja to sterilize dogs, and also aids a Dubrovnik feral cat
project.

“They lost a certain amount of food,” Dogs Trust chief
executive Clarissa Baldwin added, citing contacts who helped to
organize the 2005 International Companion Animal Welfare Conference
in Dubrovnik, “but lots of people from the town have been donating
food. I will see what we can do to assist.”
The sheep of the Kornati islands off Croatia were less
fortunate. “Major drought in July exhausted all reserves of surface
water,” dried out wells, and resulted in “weeks of no presence of
even dew in the mornings,” e-mailed Davorko Feil of the Association
Life.
Feil estimated that up to 25% of the estimated 5,000 sheep
who inhabit the islands died of thirst, even though they are
“adapted to the dry conditions that usually exist there.”
Kornati residents asked Croatia to use firefighting tanker
aircraft to fill two dry ponds, Feil said, but all available
aircraft were fighting the fires on the mainland.