Frequently asked questions

Do not pick it up. Make the spot safe from traffic, keep people and pets back, and call an animal rescue helpline with your exact location — pain makes any animal bite, and an untrained lift can turn a treatable spinal injury into a permanent one. Give no food, water or painkillers, keep it warm and in sight, and wait for a trained team.

Because the risks run the other way. A bird is light, contained easily, and calmed by darkness, so whoever finds it can do the whole of the first aid. A dog or cat is strong and terrified, bites the hand reaching for it even when it knows that hand, and carries injuries — a fractured pelvis, a damaged spine, internal bleeding — that an improvised lift makes worse.

No. Paracetamol is lethal to cats even in a single small dose, and ibuprofen and aspirin damage the stomach and kidneys in dogs. An animal that may need emergency surgery must also have an empty stomach, so food and water are withheld until a vet has seen it.

Slide it — do not lift it — onto something flat and rigid such as a board, a hard suitcase lid, a flattened carton or a car floor mat, or onto a bedsheet held taut between two people. Keep the head, spine and hips in one straight line. Never lift by the legs, tail or scruff, and never carry an injured animal on a two-wheeler.

Nothing. Kerosene, turpentine, petrol, phenyl, Dettol, turmeric and oil are all widely recommended and all cause harm — they burn raw tissue, poison the animal when it licks the spot, and drive the surviving maggots deeper. A maggot wound needs veterinary flushing and an anti-parasitic medicine, and it worsens quickly, so call the same day.

Usually not. Mothers leave a litter for hours to feed and often move pups one at a time, so a litter alone is frequently not abandoned. Watch from out of sight for three to four hours. Warm, rounded, quiet newborns are being fed — leave them. Cold, limp, bony or constantly crying ones need help. Never give cow's milk; it causes fatal diarrhoea.

Move it into shade and soak its whole body — back, belly, inner thighs, armpits, paws and ears — with room-temperature water, keeping air moving over the wet coat. Never use ice or iced water, which clamps the skin's blood vessels shut and traps heat inside. Then get to a vet even if it recovers, because the organ damage continues afterwards.

Do not try to catch, corner or kill it. Move people and pets out of the room, shut the door and block the gap underneath, keep watching from outside if you safely can, and call a trained rescuer or the forest department. Nearly all Indian wildlife is protected by law, and most snakebites happen to people attempting a capture.

Wash the wound under running water with soap for several minutes — the length of the wash matters more than what you use — and see a doctor the same day about rabies post-exposure treatment. Do this for any bite or scratch from a street animal, however small the wound and however friendly the animal seemed.

Use the area-wise directory of 32 contacts across 19 areas at jinseva.in/helpline, and say at the start of the call what animal it is, because not every volunteer handles every species. If your area is not listed, the general Mumbai animal helpline is 8655370005.

Cover it with a cloth, lift it with both wings held gently against its body, and place it in a ventilated cardboard box lined with soft fabric. Close the lid and keep the box dark, quiet, warm and away from pets and children. Do not give food or water. Then call a bird rescue helpline immediately.

The clearest test is whether it lets you approach. A healthy wild bird keeps its distance. One that stays put, has a drooping wing, is bleeding, sits fluffed up with its eyes closed during the day, or cannot stand, needs help. A fully feathered baby hopping on the ground is usually a normal fledgling and should be left alone.

No. A bird in shock cannot swallow reliably, so water given by hand can run into its lungs and cause fatal aspiration pneumonia. Species diets also differ enormously, and bread, milk or rice harm most wild birds. A bird can safely go several hours without food or water while it waits.

Yes, urgently. Cat saliva carries bacteria that cause serious infection through punctures too small to see, and this can kill within a couple of days without antibiotics. Say clearly on the phone that a cat was involved, because it changes how quickly the case is prioritised.

Keep the bird contained in a closed, ventilated box somewhere dark, quiet and warm indoors, with no food or water, and call again first thing in the morning. A stable bird kept calm overnight is in far better condition than one carried around in search of an open clinic.

Usually not. Many birds are found only after hours of injury, blood loss or exposure, and shock alone can be fatal even when the wound was survivable. Containing it quietly and calling for help gave it the best chance available to you.

Mumbai has no single bird rescue number — rescue is run area by area by local volunteers. This site lists 32 contacts across 19 areas at jinseva.in/helpline. Find your area and call or WhatsApp that number. If your area is not listed, the general animal helpline is 8655370005.

Yes. It is published free for the public, needs no account and no payment, and works on any phone. Calls are charged at your normal mobile tariff.

19 areas across south Mumbai, the western and central suburbs, Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar and Thane — from Marine Lines and Grant Road out to Virar, and across to Thane.

They are publicly circulated rescue helplines belonging to the independent groups and volunteers who publish them. They are not Jinseva numbers, and availability, hours and coverage are decided by each group rather than by this site.

Try the other numbers listed for your area, then send a WhatsApp message with your exact location and a photo so a volunteer can respond when free. If nothing works, call the general animal helpline. Most of these are personal mobiles belonging to people rescuing in their own time.

The directory is maintained by hand. If you run a rescue group and want your number listed, corrected or removed, get in touch through the contact page.

For small birds like pigeons and sparrows, yes — use a cloth or gloves to protect yourself and the feathers, and wash your hands with soap afterwards. Keep well back from large birds, birds of prey, herons and anything with a long sharp beak, and wait for a trained rescuer. Those species can injure your eyes and hands.

No. Wild birds decline quickly without species-appropriate food, fluids and veterinary care, and most wild species in India are legally protected, so keeping one is an offence. Contain it safely and hand it to a registered rescue group or a veterinarian.

The risk from a single bird is low but not zero. Handle any sick bird with a cloth or gloves, keep it away from pet birds and poultry, and wash your hands thoroughly with soap afterwards. Never handle a group of sick or dead birds — report those instead.

Wash the wound immediately with running water and soap for several minutes, and see a doctor the same day about rabies post-exposure treatment. This applies to any bite or scratch from a street animal, however small the wound and however friendly the animal seemed.

Generally no. An injured dog in pain is likely to bite, and lifting one with a spinal or pelvic injury can cause permanent damage. Keep a calm distance, make the spot safe from traffic if you can, and call a rescue helpline with the exact location.

Jinseva is case-management software for animal and bird rescue organisations. Each NGO gets its own dashboard, volunteer roster and WhatsApp automation, so a rescue call becomes a tracked case that reaches the right responder and is followed through to closure.

No. Jinseva is the software that rescue organisations run on, and the publisher of the free helpline directory and rescue guides on this site. The rescues themselves are carried out by the independent groups and volunteers listed in the directory.

Any animal or bird rescue organisation. Register at jinseva.in/register, and once approved your organisation runs on its own URL with its own cases, volunteers, statuses and WhatsApp device.

No. Your NGO links the WhatsApp device your team already uses, and team alerts and caller messages go out from that number.

At most two: one acknowledging that their case was registered, and one status update. The limit is deliberate — rescue groups that message more get reported and blocked.

No. Cases, volunteers, messages and invoices are scoped to your organisation on the server rather than merely hidden in the interface. Other organisations see only your public profile.

₹1,200 per month or ₹12,000 per year for one organisation, plus 18% GST — ₹1,416 and ₹14,160 payable. Both plans include unlimited cases and unlimited volunteers.

No. The price depends only on the billing term, not on how many cases you log or how many volunteers you add.

Online by card, UPI or netbanking through Razorpay, from the billing page inside your dashboard. A GST tax invoice is issued automatically once payment is confirmed.

The dashboard, login and admin pages for that organisation stop being reachable until it is renewed. The public case tracker stays open, so a member of the public who reported an animal can still check what happened to it.

No. The helpline directory and every rescue guide on this site are free for anyone, with no account and no payment. The subscription covers the case-management platform for organisations.

No. When a caller attaches a photo it is relayed to WhatsApp so the responder can see the situation, then discarded. It is never written to the database.

It is stored against the case so the responding organisation can reach them and send the acknowledgement and status update. It is visible only to that organisation, and it is never shown on any public page.

The tracker is designed to tell a caller what happened to the animal they reported. It is excluded from search engines, and the rest of the tenant area is excluded too.

Case data exports to CSV from the reports page over any date range. For deletion, contact the platform administrator through your dashboard.