A charitable couple have taken their love of animals to the extreme — by opening up their home to more than 100 rescued animals.
Dr Prakash Amte and his wife Dr Mandakini Amte have dedicated their lives to helping the animals of Hemalkasa, in India.
Their animal exploits began when the couple spotted a group of tribal people coming back from hunting with two monkeys tied to a bamboo stick.
A baby monkey was attached to his dead mother’s breast and was drinking her milk.
Prakash said: ‘We had never heard of people eating monkeys in India. But, here, people were killing them. We told them to hand us over the baby. But they were not ready to hand over the baby as they were without food. So we offered them rice and vegetables and exchanged it with a monkey.
‘This was our first bargain.’
For the last two decades the Amte family have built up their animal sanctuary, having rescued a variety of animals including jackals, leopards, jungle cats, sloth bears and giant squirrels.
Incredibly, none of the family has ever been attacked by their furry friends.
‘Animals became family to us,’ said Prakash.
‘I call them my family members and the number started increasing until it reached a hundred.’
Not content with educating villagers about animals, Prakash has also started a local school for the tribal children in the village, which provides free education and meals for youngsters.
The family’s efforts have been rewarded with numerous awards, including the Mother Teresa Award for Social Justice in 2014, and they were the subjects of a movie biopic released in 2014 called Dr Prakash Baba Amte: The Real Hero.
Now Prakash is turning his thoughts to conservation.
He said: ‘In the future we hope to help breed endangered species, animals from other sanctuaries, and release them into the wild when they’re ready.’
(Source: Metro.new)