Our university is conducting a lot of works to protect the ecological balance on campus and is quite sensitive on this matter. One of these works is for the Spermophilus.

After the event on feeding the Spermophilus last week, we organized an event again to feed them in order to create a living space for them on campus and eliminate the nutritional problems they encounter in the early period.

Chaired by Asst. Prof. İmdat Orhan, a faculty member at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, The Animal Survival and Protection Club student community came together in front of the Rectorate Building with our Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Oktay Özkan and our Secretary General Prof. Dr. İbrahim Narin and left food around the living spaces of the Spermophilus and the nests that have a high living potential for them.

Making a statement here, our Vice Rector emphasized that Erciyes University is one of the leading universities in Türkiye in terms of ecological balance in the fields of sustainability and environment. In addition, he stated that our university achieved great success in many fields, and that it ranked 3rd in Türkiye and 85th in the world in the UI Greenmetric Ranking.

Pointing out that Erciyes University achieved to have various rankings in sustainability, Professor Özkan continued as follows: “We are sensitive to the Spermophilus population. We established a monitoring committee on this issue last year. This committee made suggestions about providing living spaces for this population, protecting these spaces and how to solve this issue, and especially about the population increase, and prepared reports. In this context, we supported the committee. The student community really works hard. We also thank the members of the community. Today, we are here to provide living spaces for this population on campus and help them with their nutritional problems in the early period. The student community and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine continue to do their best to detect and protect the living spaces of this population. Therefore, we thank our students and faculty members for their support.”

He also underlined that there are different projects about the matter, he said that they created a space especially for pigeons, and that they are working on expanding an existing project at different places on our campus. He added: “We are also working to feed cats. We will do everything what is needed in terms of a sustainable university thanks to your contributions. In this regard, we will support you.”

Asst. Prof. İmdat Orhan said: “We organized an event to feed the Spermophilus during their early awakening periods. Today, we have organized the same event. Our students also help us. Our main purpose here is to relieve the hunger problems of the newly awakened Spermophilus to some extent.”

Pointing out that this population is seed-loving animals; that is, they feed on the seeds of plants, especially the seeds of wild herbs in nature, Asst. Prof. İmdat Orhan underscored that they suffer from hunger as the plants do not produce seeds in the early period. That’s why he said they organized this feeding event with the students.