The action of sorrow “Forgive Me, My Dear Animal Friend” for the second time took place on Octo-ber 4 — the World Animal Day in major Ukrainian cities: Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Lviv, and others. It was organized by the Association of Animal Protection Organizations of Ukraine and was supported particularly by the NGO “Kyiv Society for the Protection of Animals,” Kharkiv oblast NGO for animal protection “Virnist,” Donetsk city center for animal protection “Zoozakhyst” to draw attention to barbaric killing of animals on the streets of Ukrainian cities. Animal protection activists lit hundreds of candles and set the words “Forgive Us” using them. The leaders of the action say that they will organize such events annually until the Law of Ukraine “On protection of animals from cruelty,” adopted in 2006 that prohibits cruel treatment of animals, will be considered.
Also on this day the Association of Animal Protectors of Ukraine, that includes 34 organizations from across the country, appealed to the President Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, and Vice Prime Minister for Euro-2012 Borys Kolesnikov asking to address the issue of homeless animals in a civilized manner. In fact, according to the requirements made for Ukraine to have the right to hold the soccer championship, the mile zone around the stadiums should be “cleansed” of homeless animals. As the animal protectors note, in Kyiv this distance is from the National Sports Complex Olimpiisky to Khreshchatyk.
The Day has been often telling its readers about the issue of cruelty to animals in Ukraine. There were articles about construction of shelters for cats and dogs, sterilization programs, and the cases of mass poisoning, but, unfortunately, little has changed in Ukraine up until now. The good news can be heard only from the community activists, who on their own try to solve the issue of finding a shelter or sterilizing an animal. The state now has nothing to do with this painful problem.
Asia SEPRINSKA, head of the Association of Animal Protection Organizations of Ukraine:
“We, animal protection activists, unfortunately, have neither power, nor money to influence the situation. We can only recommend the authorities to pay attention to the cruel treatment of animals in the country and suggest the possible ways of solving the issue. We also remind them that all these cruel actions that we witness are a shame and sorrow for all the Ukrainian people. This is totally unacceptable if we want to be in Europe. Ukraine is now facing a choice: to follow the path of civilized countries, where the issue of homeless animals has been solved long ago, or the barbarian path of killing, and then the largest European soccer tournament will be held on blood by cost of thousands of innocent lives. According to calculations made by our organization in Kyiv, for example, there are no more than 4,000 homeless animals. This is how it is, despite the fact that some of them have been sterilized by our volunteers and are now kept under their supervision. It is still not late to resolve the issue of their accommodation and sterilization by expansion of the now existing shelters using financing from private sources and building a few municipal shelters.
“It’s not the first time that we address the highest instance — the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the president, ministries, and departments, with our bills to help once and for all to resolve the issue of homeless animals. Our main proposal is to prevent the phenomena of homelessness, because all that go-vernment does is struggling with the consequences by killing the animals. There are many reasons of animals’ homelessness. One of them is the uncontrolled reproduction. That is why we suggest that the Ukrainian government would, firstly, create a system of animal shelters in Ukraine, secondly, prohibit uncontrolled reproduction of nonbreeders and unproductive animals (cats and dogs), and, thirdly, create sterilization stations.”
