Life with animals instead of city comfort

A former ballerina and her husband have left their comfortable lives in Tel Aviv to run a rehabilitation centre for sick and injured animals in the desert. Their philosophy is: if an animal can be saved it will be saved.

A life-long dream of Lilach Bolotin, 41, and her husband Dandan Bolotin, 52, became a reality in 1998 when the two packed their belongings and left Tel-Aviv life to embark on a project to save and protect Israeli wildlife. The shelter rehabilitates and provides a home for injured and sick animals who are sent there from zoos or from Israel's Nature and National Park Protection Authorities who find them and cannot accommodate them. T

he Bolotin's philosophy is that if an animal can be saved they will save it. If it is well enough to survive in nature they will free it, if not, they will provide a life-long home for it on their farm. The Bolotins have travelled all around the world and worked as biologists from Africa to South America. Now they've decided it's time to open a rescue shelter for Israeli wildlife.

There are dozens of animals on the farm, different species who require care around the clock. The day starts with rounds to see how the animals are doing then Lilach starts with the long and strenuous job of preparing food for all the hungry mouths. She peels and cuts the fruit, breaks up the frozen meat which will melt quickly in the desert sun, then she cuts it up and starts making the rounds from cage to cage.

Before the move here, Lilach's life could not have been more different from this - she used to be a ballet dancer and member of one of the most prominent dance groups in Israel. Looking at Lilach at work, you can see all those years she spent as a dancer on stage have paid off - she is strong and agile as she manoeuvres from cage to cage, between the large and the smallest of animals.

The variety of wildlife at the shelter is vast - a wide range of birds of prey, some injured by hunters, some fallen out of nests. Tortoises - endangered in Israel due to habitat but also according to Lilach because many are run over by drivers.

Lilach claims drivers don't even notice when they run over animals such as the tortoises. She thinks it is lack of awareness and proper education regarding these issues that cause these accidents, and feels it is part of their duty to try to provide information and educate people as much as possible to be aware of their surroundings.

There are jackals in the shelter who will never be released back to nature as their population in Israel is too large. They will spend the rest of their lives here. There are foxes, wolves, porcupines, lemurs and more animals who arrived either from zoos that had to close down, or zoos in which the animals were rejected or attacked and could not be kept safe, and other animals which were brought by the Israeli Nature and National Park Protection Authorities.

There are jungle cats who were brought by the authorities after cubs were found in a ruined tunnel which was probably run over by a jeep; the mother either escaped or was killed. Each animal has its own story. The Bolotins treat them all the same. The Bolotins work very hard to ensure that the conditions in the shelter are as similar as possible to the animals' natural habitat.

In an effort to keep the animals happy and stimulated there are all sorts of constructions such as tunnels and play houses in the various cages. What the Bolotins aim to do is to use the animals who will have to remain in the shelter as breeding stock, so that in the future their young can be introduced to the wild. This of course means that the way they rear the next generation must to be different. They make sure that the food they give them is similar to what they may find in the wild. They stress that the animals are not made to feel "too comfortable" around humans. If it a hunting animal, they teach them how to hunt for themselves. Dandan says that as a child he thought that animals in captivity were miserable, but since he has his own shelter he realises that if you take good care of them, some will prefer to stay with you.

Though they do not receive monetary donations, according to Jewish law a percentage of the fruit and vegetables produced need to be left uneaten by humans. Some growers give this surplus food to the shelter so it can be eaten by the animals.

The couple are working on enlarging the deer pan so that they can breed more deer. The Israeli Nature and National Park Protection Authorities are helping them financially with this project. Recently the couple decided to allow small groups of researches to come to study the ecological aspects of their farm. This will provide an additional source of income which will bring in a little extra money which is so needed in the shelter.

The facilities in the Bolotin shelter are all authorised and meet the standards of the Israeli Nature and National Parks Protection Authority. Releasing animals back to the wild is fully coordinated with the authorities. The Bolotins provide an annual detailed report about the animals, births, deaths, new arrivals and releases. Financially the farm receives no funding whatsoever, there are no sponsors or donors. Dandan works outside the farm and their private funds keep the shelter going.

The Bolotins are doing something they love, they say they do it because "it's fun", but it is clear that all this hard work must be motivated by a deeper sense of urgency. Dandan says that he feels the world is at its 12th hour, wildlife is disappearing and he feels that he must take a stand, and make a difference, small as it may be. "This is definitely a mission, not just for (saving) the animals but also for the animal's habitat." The four Bolotin children were brought up with animals from the day they were born. To them being surrounded by wildlife is normal.

Eshel, the couple's second daughter, feels at ease walking in and out of the animal's cages helping with the feeding. She walks with confidence into the cage of the spotted deer who for days was hanging between life and death and holds the bottle and feeds it. Lilach says that one of her greatest joys is watching her children and their friends running through the valley, looking for animals and simply enjoying nature. The Bolotins have completely invested in the future generations both of their children and their animals, to try to ensure that the two co-exist in harmony.