I‘ve been following the situation in Ukraine and rules re.animal import to Switzerland. Basically all rules were lifted and owners are allowed to bring their pets undocumented. Yet, Ukraine is a country with high risk of rabies and Swiss rules are quite strict in this regard.
Considering the import of all these pets and the fact that we are still in a good epidemiological situation in terms of rabies. What‘s your explanation?
Does this mean Ukraine should not have been in the list in the first place or am I too early and we will get hit soon?
It's not true that all controls have been lifted. Rather, that in response to the urgency of the situation bureaucracy has been simplified. Post arrival measures are in place.
See Idgie's explanation of the ZH rules, posted in the 'Practical Tips' thread, here:
And from the BLV, here, see especially the Merkblatt linked:
A good compromise, IMO, responding to an extraordinary situation with compassion, while still maintaining public health control measures.
Zürich Tierschutz, who are working to find approprite accomodation when needed, said it very well, methinks:
Die ukrainischen Flüchtlinge sind auf schnelle und unbürokratische Hilfe angewiesen. Die Tiere bedeuten für die Menschen in ihrer Notlage eine grosse emotionale Unterstützung und geben ihnen Kraft, die traumatischen Erlebnisse zu verarbeiten.
The Merkblatt you referring to has been published just yesterday, which is almost 3 weeks late. I am being involved in assisting families and was constantly emphasizing the importance of pet registration. However, i must say I do not see this happening among ppl who live outside the camps. And zero of those I met actually isolated their pets.
It takes time for things to be done by a bureaucracy, especially a pamphlet like this in a foreign language. It needs to be drafted, edited, approved, translated, edited, approved, and then published and distributed.
It's unfortunate for Swiss animals that the chance of rabies has been increased by this.
It would have been far worse for refugees to be told, at the border, that they had to leave their pets behind to enter Switzerland. Many would have stayed, in a war zone, in order to not abandon their pets.
20Minuten was reporting yesterday that only pets that have not been vaccinated against rabies have to go into quarantine - can anyone confirm?
They also reported that families are being separated from their pets because the Swiss refugee centres won't allow animals (for a range of rather spurious-sounding reasons). There is therefore a call for accommodation for refugee pets.
I'm contemplating offering accommodation to a family specifically with pets (but can only do so after Easter Monday as the accommodation is under contract until then) and looking for how to do that. 20Minuten mentioned an agency called Tasso ( https://help.tasso.net/de/ ) but they are German and I'm not sure how that ties in with the Swiss agencies and local authorities.
Alternatively the Swiss refugee agency ( https://www.fluechtlingshilfe.ch/akt...e-gefluechtete ) is actively seeking host families and accommodation, with a lot of local info. I don't know if one could register there and specify the offer of accommodation with pets?
I have time to help at the moment to help animals in desperate need from Ukraine that have been left abandoned due to this dreadful situation. I am based in the countryside in the Gstaad area. If I can help find loving homes for the animals please let me know. Or to help out in any way I can.
Please drop me a line if you think there is something I can do apart from donate funds which I have already done.