“It was a real nightmare while they were getting them”: how rescuers rescue animals

Every living creature desperately clings to life and so expects help from a person… And all rescuers understand this, because they themselves love animals. There can’t be others here. Every time, having taken an animal out of one or another “trap” into which it fell, the heart of its deliverer becomes warmer, and sometimes a stingy male tear rolls down, which he imperceptibly wipes away with his palm.

In 2023, the courageous guys from the SpasReserve search and rescue team saved 293 animal and bird lives. This is who was waiting for the help of volunteers at different times: cats and kittens, dogs, bats (as many as 20!), many birds – pigeons, tits, crows, sparrows, swifts, parrots, hawks; three snakes, ducks and ducklings. A monitor lizard, an agama lizard, a fox cub, a hedgehog, a raccoon and a baby squirrel would also thank the rescuers if they could.

MK asked SpasReserve shift manager Vasily Fominykh about this area of ​​work – he is one of those who directly rescued more than one animal from a life-threatening situation. According to him, on almost every shift they work with an animal.

Cats stuck in trees between branches are a major headache for rescuers. “At any time of the year, cats somehow end up blocked in trees, and we use different equipment to remove them,” Vasily told MK.

But cats don’t just get stuck in trees. And only rescuers know how many different traps await the mustache-tailed creatures in the city. One day a call came from Service 112: “The cat got its paw stuck in the window, can’t get it out, and has ripped off its owner.” The arriving rescuers were amazed at the size of the cat: it was a hybrid of a domestic cat and a serval (actually a small leopard! With fangs). Having assessed the situation, the guys made the only right decision – to act outside. Using climbing equipment, one of them descended to the desired window from the neighbors above – and it was the 42nd floor! In the eyes of the average person, this is an incredible risk, but for the guys this is standard mountaineering work. The rescue climber managed to lift the paw that was sticking out of the window from the outside, and the animal was freed (there was no need to break the window).

In another district of Moscow, the cat Kuzya fell from the windowsill and his paw got stuck between the sections of the radiator. To get her out, the rescuers “bit off” a piece of the silumin battery. The cat then had to get several stitches…

Hell of a Dog: A Week Under a Concrete Slab

Vasily spoke about the most difficult animal rescue operation in his practice – it was the rescue of a dog from captivity of concrete slabs in Lobnya.

“It took us nine hours to rescue her,” the rescuer shares. — Several stray dogs lived near the railway under a fallen concrete fence. These are several sections of a concrete fence that fell to the ground a long time ago, leaving a void underneath. They were fed there, someone looked after them. One day, one of the “feeding” women noticed that two dogs had disappeared somewhere. Then it became clear that they were somewhere deep under the slabs and could not get out. In general, Lobnya is not our area of ​​responsibility (we work in Moscow), but we went there on the personal instructions of the squad leader.

We assessed the situation and understood where the animals were approximately located. There was a narrow hole where only dogs could get through. We decided to expand it by removing part of the frozen soil. When we managed to get closer, we were disappointed: we were able to reach the dogs with a trapping noose, but could not pull them out. The larger animal was frozen to the concrete slab and was blocking the exit. It was not possible to lift the slab; we had to break it. We acted carefully; it was important to prevent the structure from collapsing on the animals.

After six hours of working in the cold, we requested additional strength. The Mosoblpozhspas crew and the second crew of our detachment arrived. As a result, 20 people saved the dogs! With our joint efforts, we pulled the dog out, carried it on a blanket to the car, and local residents took it to the veterinary clinic. Her hind legs have already given up because she spent a whole week in this “captivity” without moving, without food or water. But the vets said she would be fine. The second, small dog, was able to get out on its own after we rescued the big one. Another day and they would have died. We got them on January 11, but they disappeared on January 3 – it was on that day that there was severe frost, and I think they hid there, trying to escape the cold.

— Did you believe in the success of this enterprise from the very beginning?

“It was a real nightmare while they were getting them.” But I immediately told the head of the detachment that we would not leave here until we got them out. It was impossible to throw them away. Once you start, you work your ass off. By the end of the operation, we could no longer stand on our feet from fatigue, but the result was worth it.

Unfortunately, not all people understand this part of our work. Someone sees us rescuing a cat stuck between the branches and says: “Do you have no one else to save?” There are different situations, but I tell you, saving an animal is no easier than saving a person. And we don’t make such distinctions. It is clear that saving a person is always our priority. If the crew goes somewhere to find a cat, and a request comes in to rescue a person, it is clear that we will leave the cat and go to rescue the person. But we will definitely return to the cat and try to save him.

The bun fits into the wrong hole

“There are no hopeless situations” – any rescuer will tell you this. Their experience speaks to this. For example, once in one of the apartments a bearded dragon named Bun got stuck in a hole in the wall of his terrarium. A cat named Inspector Cat was found guilty of this incident. Incredibly, she somehow managed to pull out the rubber plug of the hole, and it was into this hole that Bun ended up. Her thick belly prevented her from moving forward, and her hood prevented her from moving forward. Depriving her of food and waiting for her to lose weight, as Winnie the Pooh was advised, was not the best solution. Therefore, the rescuers who arrived began to work. Using a Dremel, we made cuts in the impact-resistant glass to set the direction of the crack that forms when it is “bitten off.” To prevent the lizard from being scared, they even covered it with a towel and held it with their hands. Then, using an adjustable wrench, they carefully broke the glass. The freed Bun was vacuumed (from small glass chips) and handed over to the owner.

Often SpasReserve volunteers also have to rescue monitor lizards that people keep in apartments, and at one point they run away, climb somewhere, but cannot get back out. Or snakes that, through communications, can get into someone else’s apartment or crawl outside the apartment and end up in the entrance or even on the street.

Very often in winter, ducks frozen in ice need help. Rescuers pull the duck out of the pond and hand it over to the environmental management department. Surprisingly, according to rescuers, there are many raccoons living in Moscow (not in apartments, but in nature). “People see a raccoon in a tree, high up, at the 8th floor level, and they call us in horror: “Take it down!” He will die! – says Vasily. “But we know that a rescue operation is not required in this case.” People are not aware that this is a normal habitat for raccoons, and that they get in there and get out. If the animal is not injured, not blocked, not pinned anywhere, then it should not be touched.”

When it’s not Batman who saves, but Batman

During the winter period, a lot of calls are received about bats that unexpectedly emerge from hibernation in some places. One day, a bat flew through the window into the apartment and ended up inside the suspended ceiling system! For an hour, the rescuers “picked” her out of there with tweezers. The mouse was ultimately unharmed.

According to Vasily, if a bat flies into an apartment, in 99% of cases people get scared.

“We usually find this picture: people have closed this room where the mouse is, sit and shake in fear that it will bite them,” the rescuer shares. — In fact, the bats that live in Central Russia and Moscow are not blood-sucking. They feed on insects and weigh only 10-15 g. A fairly large population of them lives in Moscow – 300-400 thousand individuals. They do not pose any danger to humans.

When we receive calls about a bat, we ask complainants to close their windows to prevent it from flying back out into the cold. The fact is that these animals spend the entire winter hibernating. But sometimes, for various reasons, a mouse may wake up ahead of schedule. And then she flies out of the shelter in search of food and a more suitable place. And she has very little time to find a place where she will at least not freeze (but in any case she will not find food in the winter). At this desperate moment, she flies into any warm crevice and ends up in an apartment or entrance. If a person does not help her, then she will simply die.

Yes, don’t touch them with your bare hands. We always work in protective equipment, although there have never been cases of rabies infection from them. Don’t be afraid of her! A person can quite calmly, carefully, wearing gloves, take a mouse and put it in a box. And hand it over to the specialists of the Chiroptera Assistance Center (at the Moscow Zoo).

The press service of the MK search and rescue team finally said: “The biggest problem for us is when we are left with a rescued animal in our arms, and the applicant who called us is not its owner and did not intend to give it a home. We would like to express our deep gratitude to the animal volunteers who take in our rescued animals, treat them and find them a family.”