Todd next to his Cessna 421 and the cats on board. Meow.

The situation for many pets in Egypt is very difficult. There are no government laws regulating animal welfare. Many people buy pets from deplorable pet shops and then dump them in the street or vet office when they no longer want them. Purebred Persian cats cannot survive in the street against the feral street cats because the Persians have had their survival instinct bred out of them. Paul was one cat who came over from Egypt to the USA. He was in a very bad pet shop and the owner of the shop was using the cats for breeding. The pet shop kept him in a bird cage and only fed him bread and water. When Paul became sick, the owner threw him in the street. A kind Egyptian lady who lives on the same street saw him and took him in. Bousy, Chloe, and Lilly are the three other cats who flew on Todd’s plane to AZ. They were all abandoned by owners who left them to die.

We thank our partners Subaru and Petmate.   Their support is critical to accomplishing our mission.

A very furry welcoming committee.

Pilot Todd Underwood just made an unusual life saving flight for The Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals (ESMA)  to AJ’s Best Friends.  What’s so unusual about this rescue flight is all 6 cats were rescued from horrible abusive lives in Cairo, Egypt.  Unlike the U.S. and many other countries, there are no animal laws in Egypt and the situation for domestic animals is dire.  People buy them from overcrowded and cruel pet shops, they keep them for a few weeks, and then throw them out in the trash or the street.  They treat them like disposable toys.  The only animal control there is by the government who puts out poison or goes on shooting sprees.

Thanks Todd!

Fortunately, there are some very kind Egyptian volunteers who dedicate their time to rescuing these animals from their horrible situations.  But, since there are so few volunteers, the make-shift shelter there has over 600 animals.  There is no culture of adoption, so the animals just sit there their whole life (which is short because they catch illnesses from one another).  As the Egyptian volunteers work to build a better animal culture in Egypt, they don’t want to let the animals in the shelter have a horrible life.  So they have found shelters abroad that take them and find them forever homes.  We have sent animals to Europe and also to the USA (Milwaukee, SF, San Diego, etc).

The problem is that sending the cats to the USA on cargo is prohibitively expensive.  It is much cheaper if we can find a person flying from Cairo to USA so the animal can fly on their ticket, with them serving as flying parents.  In this case, we had a woman who agreed to take 6 cats to Las Vegas. The shelter is in Phoenix.  Luckily, Pilots N Paws helped us transfer the cats in the last leg of their long journey to safety.

Heidi Morrison
US rep for Egyptian Society for Mercy for Animals
morrisonheidi@gmail.com

AJ’s Best Friends contact info is ajbfcats@gmail.com

Thanks, Beth in Bainbridge for getting everything in check for this FREEDOM flight! We ALWAYS appreciate the pilots that fly to help shelter animals get second chances! And to the rescues that take them in! Check out the Cat Rescue and adopt an animal!

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Pilot Jim Carney, better known to some of us in rescue as “Uncle Jim” flew 2 dogs and 6 cats from TN to KY.

Thank you Jim and to the rescues involved in saving these 8 animals!

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Pilots N Paws pilots moved 52 animals (45 dogs and 7 cats) out of rural southern Georgia to Florida today in one trip. Aren’t they awesome? Just wanted you to know that this amazing program saves so many animals from certain death. Besides those, I also had another pilot that brought a Boxer mama and her 8 pups that were only 2 weeks old from a kill shelter to a waiting rescue in Florida. A good day’s work, if I do say so! Thanks to everyone for helping! Sue Bruce