Dear Friend,

Urgent Request: Our friends at Ukraine's Kyiv Zoo need our help! They have thousands of animals, including one 47 year-old male gorilla (see Tony above) and a highly noise-sensitive elephant, who are bunkered down as the Russian invasion continues.

It is not currently practical to evacuate the animals, and the zoo tells us their most dire need is for food and medicine for both the animals and staff. They have 50 caregivers (plus 30 family members onsite) to care for around 4000 animals.

The Kyiv Zoo has about 2 weeks of food left!

We need your help to extend their food supply by weeks or months — until either the conflict ends, or a window opens to evacuate some of the animals and transfer them to a zoo or sanctuary outside Ukraine.

It costs about $500/day to feed all of the animals, and less than $5/day to feed gorilla Tony. So, for example, a donation of $35 would feed an animal like Tony for a week, and $150 would keep him fed for another month!   Any amount will be helpful!

Please make your donation via a special website dedicated to this cause by EAZA (The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria), to which the Kyiv Zoo is connected. This is the most reliable way to help!

To donate now, click on the following orange button, which links to EAZA's Emergency Appeal for Ukrainian Zoos page.  Scroll down, click on the Payment Link, and remember to type #KOKO in the "Description" field when you donate, so we can provide a full report on the impact of this urgent and essential campaign:

Thank you for joining us in bringing some relief to these innocent animals and their dedicated caregivers, who are enduring unimaginably stressful conditions!  We'll update you in the days and weeks ahead and let you know how they're doing.

We hope the Kyiv Zoo, with outside support from people like you, can find a way to weather this storm, and provide some form of sanctuary to these peace-loving animals.

With profound gratitude for your continued support to save the great apes — and other animals, in urgent situations such as this!

Sincerely,

Dr. Penny Patterson, Ph.D. 
President & Director of Research
The Gorilla Foundation / Koko.org

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