PETA-Supported Teams are Treating Petra’s Working Animals
The PETA-supported staff at the Petra Veterinary Clinic has treated over 600 working donkeys in Petra! Our veterinary clinic treats donkeys, horses, and other animals who have been injured or overworked while carrying tourists and even trash up the 900 steps to the monastery in the historic city of Petra—all at no cost to the animals’ owners. Many of these animals are seeing a veterinarian for the very first time in their lives.
The team in Petra has treated animals suffering from:
- Painful saddle and tack sores
- Lameness caused by overwork or hoof or joint problems
- Hoof deformities and abscesses from being forced to carry heavy loads
- Severe habronemiasis, a skin condition transmitted by flies landing on open wounds
- Wounds from being deliberately slashed with razor blades
- Severe anemia and other mineral deficiencies caused by inadequate nutrition (Many donkeys eat only what they manage to scavenge from trash cans at night.)
- Colic, often as a result of eating plastic from trash cans (Plastic bags can become lodged in the intestines and gradually completely obstruct them, leading to a potentially fatal intestinal rupture. Such cases require emergency surgery.)
We’ve also dealt with heart-breaking cases, like these:
- A pregnant donkey had been pushed off a cliff by children. She was in tremendous pain, and her hindquarters were paralyzed. She had lost both motor and sensory functions.
- Another donkey had been beaten in the head 14 times with a heavy, sharp object, causing his right ear to become almost completely detached. PETA’s veterinarians had to use 80 stitches to save his ear and sew up his facial injuries.
