Anyone who has spent time in Turkey, especially Istanbul, will have noted the condition of street animals here. For all the compassion that exists for our furry friends, so too do plenty of challenges in surviving life in the outdoors. Resources exist, but are often limited, underutilized, or disconnected from one another. Enter Kırık Kuyruk (Busted Tails), an online portal dedicated to coordinating a local movement of animal lovers across the country, as well as providing education in an effort to raise awareness and best help those working with street animals. The map-based platform (easily translated into English with Google Translate or relevant browser extension) allows users to open ‘classifieds’ in their area, supporting dozens of categories, including everything from animals needing their forever home, volunteers offering their time, temporary foster homes, and veterinarian services, to people offering their carriers, donations, transportation, and plenty more. Taking just a moment to fill out the digital form means you too can do your part and be part of a nationwide collective of heroes to street animals in need.
The project is lovingly looked after and founded by two animal advocates, Christian and Ceyda, in their spare time and at their expense. For those wanting to support the project outright, rather than seeking funding, they’re looking for those who can contribute technical expertise on the side of the platform, provide PR in reaching a wider audience, and of course take part within the platform directly. We took some time to speak with Christian Feiland and find out a bit more about the ambitious and caring world of Kırık Kuyuk.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and what brought you to Istanbul?
In short, it was a classic love story that got me to move to Istanbul in 1997. I had lived in Berlin for four years ahead of Istanbul and started my work life as freelance radio and TV journalist. I always wanted to become a film director, but due to certain reasons drifted into making news and documentaries. With time I acquired the skills of a cameraman, director and video editor.
The longer version would be that in total I have lived for 27 years in Istanbul and am very proud of my Istanbul family history, that dates back to 1875. My ancestors “Meyer” worked in the Yildiz Palace for Abdül Hamid II as watch makers. Many know that the “Meyer Clocks” used to be all over Turkey up to 20 years ago. My presently 99 year old grandmother met Atatürk in person. Besides in Germany, I also grew up in Istanbul and Karachi/Pakistan.
What motivated you to start Kırık Kuyruk and what was the inspiration behind the name?
Probably almost all of us have been confronted with an emergency situation – a street cat or dog in distress, in which you decide or are forced to help the suffering animal. In 2013 my wife and I, once again, encountered such a situation, when we tried to save a wild street cat off the roof of a five-story building across our own flat. After two frustrating weeks of trial and error, we finally were able to rescue the cat with a life trap. Our long struggle led to the question: “Why isn’t there a help portal for street animals?” – The idea and concept of BustedTails.com / KirikKuyruk.com was born.
Our aim was to unite those people that help street animals and also make simple do-it-yourself info sheets and videos. In short, we wanted to help people that help street animals to be more effective. Unite the sources with a map based system that shows what kind of help is offered or needed in their neighbourhood. Unlike Facebook or Instagram the posts would not disappear with time, but you can always look them up – by area and category.
The name and logo of BustedTails.com is meant to reflect the bitter reality of most street animals. Most street cats have a live expectancy of only 2-3 years, where as house cats can easily live up to 15 years. Most street animals get injured or sick due to the harsh street life. Our logo, that was designed by our talented volunteer Arman Akıncı, has a cat’s tail with a bandage. We wanted to symbolise the problem of street animals and at the same time show that it is easily possible to help those beautiful animals. Three legged or one eyed animals can, in the right surroundings, have a happy life too.
Considering you’ve been active since 2013, could you give us a brief outline of the platform’s journey over the years? What were the major milestones?
After many months of preparation, in fall of 2014, we started a crowd-funding project. The plan was to hire a professional programmer to get us a platform for our concept. The crowd funding PR video went viral all over Turkey with almost 400,000 views and more than 16,500 shares. This happened only after Bora Yeter shared it on his Facebook page, at a time when the crowd funding deadline had almost arrived and the desired amount was not reached. Thus we did not receive a single penny. Another set back, but we did not give up. A year later and after various tries and lots of time invested, we were informed about a new WordPress theme that was similar to our concept. After many intensive months of learning all about WordPress and the theme, finally in March 2016, BustedTails.com, according to my information a unique concept for street animals, was online. It took us more than 2.5 years and we were close to giving up many times, but in the end were extremely proud to have done it.
Another great milestone was in mid 2016, when Rumeysa Gelgi started to become our, by now, most active volunteer. At 2,13 meters, she used to be world’s “tallest teenager,” according to the Guinness Book of World Records. We are so happy and proud to have Rumeysa, who is now 22 years old, on our team. Even though she has many obstacles regarding her health, like Weaver Syndrome and Scoliosis, she is always positive and helpful. She is such an impressive and intelligent young woman.
Of course, we have made improvements and changes since BustedTails.com first launched. I have learned a lot from scratch and am happy we got the portal online. Still it is not the most elegant and best solution, but it was this or nothing. We would love to improve the system, but just can not do it alone. Please, do know, we run BustedTails.com in our free time and with our own money – besides our main jobs.
In your experience in this field, what are the greatest challenges facing street animals in Istanbul?
As of what we observe, by far the most dangerous and harming factor is the street life itself. Also, a total paradox, street animal lovers, meaning well and feeding the animals but not willing to neuter them, increase the population and thus unfortunately increase the problem.
Having no home and living on the streets, means for most street dogs and cats, that they can not find a space to rest or sleep in peace – not to mention that many are being chased away or even taken away by the municipalities after someone complains. Shy street cats, mainly kittens, have not many places to hide in a city. Green parks or bushes are rare in Istanbul, not many abandoned buildings are left, so kittens try to hide desperately in the cold and naked concrete surroundings and very often enter cars as hideout. To be more exact, the car engine area. In winter to heat up, but also in summer to hide from the city chaos. I made it a habit to every single time open my car hood and check if cats are hiding inside. In only two years I discovered 11 cats inside my engine space. Once there were four kittens at once, another time an adult cat would not want to leave engine at all – I had only parked for 10 minutes, and once I had to carry away a very relaxed cat sitting on the warm motor block. What would have happened if I had not checked? Not opened the hood. Immediate death probably, but most might have to suffer much worse – they get stuck, a leg or other parts are torn off or they slowly start to get boiled since the car engine becomes extremely hot with time.
Years ago, I always wondered why there were so many run over kittens on the Bosphorus bridges – it did not make sense to me. Why would they try to “cross the street”, since on the sides of the bridges there are no houses and no space to live for them. Now I am convinced it is due to kittens and cats in total panic jumping out of the moving car or they fainted and dropped due to the increasing heat. What a terrible and sad fate.
The other big challenge, are animal friends that are not supporting neutering. They mean well by feeding them, but – de facto – enlarge the problem. Dogs and cats multiply extremely fast, especially if they are well fed. Usually one or two cats or dogs on any street are tolerated and they probably have the chance of having a decent life. But whenever the population starts to get bigger and bigger neighbours start to complain about the smell of their excrement or are even scared of sicknesses and are panicking. If there are too many animals, people start to try to get rid of them and inform officials. They usually catch and take them to some location that is, most likely, worse for them. In the long run by feeding but not neutering animals, the problems increase, as does the suffering of the animals too.
Please, conduct TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release at the same location), as there is no other way to reduce the suffering of the animals and it is healthier life for them too.
What are your greatest needs as an organization? How can people become more involved and have the platform reach a wider audience?
We have worked hard to set up this portal, which is supposed to make it easier to help street animals. This portal is a tool and tools need to be used to become efficient. It is – obviously – for free and for all over Turkey. Only if more animal helpers, vets, municipalities, and so on add their own classified ads to our portal, the portal will become a place to turn to and help. We have 32 categories, including “work power”, “animal transportation”, “adoptions”, “food donations”, but also anything that prevents animals from living on the street, like “animal sitters”, “temporary homes”, “lost & found animals” and more. All with a map-based search engine that shows you who needs help in a certain area or who offers help. For many vets, it would be free advertising too. Most that take a look at our system are impressed by it and say, “This is such a great idea.” But then many do not bother to place their clinic on the portal – due to lack of time mostly.
It takes about 5 minutes to place an ad. It would be great if everyone could kindly remind their vet or anyone with a life trap and/or transportation cage to offer theirs for lending it to others in emergency situations.
Also BustedTails.com definitely needs more PR and awareness so people place ads. Our motto is: “Become the hero of the street animals on your streets – The more ads, the more happy paws.”
Also we are always looking for people that could help to create educational posters and videos, that teaches people how to help animals and do the right things.
Unfortunately the system is only in Turkish, besides some general English pages. With a web-page translation function (like Google Chrome has) it is possible to understand and use the system in general even if you do not know Turkish. We always planned to have it in multiple languages but the background database of the theme we use, did not support it. That was a huge disappointment for us during the programming phase.
Looking forward, are there any features you plan to include or targets you’re aiming to reach with the platform?
We are planning to produce a long overdue PR video soon. It is embarrassing that we could not find the time for it yet. Hopefully it will be an informative and entertaining short video that will create awareness of our portal. We do have other ideas, but due to our main jobs, we lack the finance and time. Having said that, it is important to know, that we can not and do not want to accept any donations. We would be happy to receive PR and programming help in the form of volunteering. In case you want to help animals directly, there are plenty of ads on our portal with people from all over Turkey in need of food donations to help feed the animals on their streets. Please, contact them directly.
For more information or to take part, be sure and check out the official website. You can also follow on Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook.
Great article! Ceyda and Christian are amazing animal carers and Cihangir Cool for Cats have worked with Busted Tails on many occasions. We encounter the same problems and attitudes, the most critical of which is definitely TNR. Networking is definitely the most effective way of helping the street animals.