“And entering into the field, he began to preach to the birds which were on the ground, and suddenly all those also on the trees came round him, and all listened while St. Francis preached to them and did not fly away until he had given them his blessing. […] all the birds began to open their beaks, to stretch their necks, to spread their wings and reverently to bow their heads to the ground, endeavoring by their motions and by their songs to manifest their joy to St. Francis”. This excerpt from The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi is not the only one in which Francis preaches to animals who listened to him with joy and curbed their restiveness. The Day the saint died, October 4, is celebrated as World Animal Day. It was this day that the protest action “Zoocide Is a Crime” was staged. The action was aimed at forcing the government to revise the law “On Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”
The Day has previously reported on this rally (notably in the issue of October 7, 2010). Naturally, an outdoor spectacle, no matter how touching and well-organized it may be, will not bring about immediate changes for the better — all the more so when dealing with our bureaucrats. Yet “Zoocide Is a Crime” differs from many events of this kind by emphasizing, perhaps for the first time, the causes, not effects, of the outrageous acts involving homeless animals. So let us focus on the causes.
Most of The Day’s readers, particularly in Kyiv, have seen a lot of stray dogs in their respective cities over the past year. Large packs of feral dogs are a typical sight even downtown, as never before.
This occurs even though tens of thousands of dogs and cats are shot, poisoned and even burnt alive on Ukraine’s streets and at the so-called public shelters (read: knackeries). Animal control officers work unstintingly. They are helped by so-called “volunteers” — people of doubtful sanity who hunt down stray dogs on their own. In spite of this, the number of animals is always on the rise and, hence, the methods, which have remained a bad vestige of the Soviet era, do not work. What is the way out?
Animal right’s activists say that the first thing is to improve the relevant laws.
The current law “On Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” was passed in February 2006, but the bylaws — indispensable to enforce this law — have not been adopted, and proposals from civic organizations have been ignored.
Moreover, the law is full of contradictions. Article 1 acknowledges only four categories of animals: wild, domestic, agricultural, and stray. However, Article 17 mentions one more: “animals that are not kept by man but reside in structures fully or partially created by human activity.” This preposterous formula equates rats and mice with stray dogs and cats — thus allowing to kill them as pests.
Further on, we find “free-roaming dogs” in Article 24. It is not explained in what they differ from stray dogs. But there is an evangelical note here: stray dogs “can be returned to their master,” while “free-roaming” ones cannot. The latter are destined to be taken to a public shelter, and we know very well what is in store for them there. That an animal catcher team will be thus free to consider any lost domestic dog as a “free-roaming dog” must have escaped the lawmakers’ notice.
This also raises doubts about the adequacy of MPs. Last December the Verkhovna Rada revoked the animal breeding license, which boosted the number of unplanned and thrown-away pups, but as soon as February 2010 the MPs voted for lifting responsibility for the cruel treatment of animals! President Yushchenko vetoed the resolution, but the MPs are going to discuss and approve the following in October:
“Article 35. Responsibility for violating the laws relating to the prevention of cruelty to animals.
“Responsibility for violating the laws relating to the prevention of cruelty to animals shall be borne by individuals and legal entities found guilty in:
violating anti-epizootic, veterinary, sanitary, and quarantine standards and rules;
breaking the rules of using animals in public displays or sporting events that include the fighting of animals or elements thereof, and other events that cause the suffering, injuring, disability, or death of animals;
failure to meet the legitimate demands of the bodies that exercise supervision in the field of the prevention of cruelty to animals.”
Any law adheres to the principle “All that is not banned is allowed.” Therefore, if you have not arranged bullfighting or a rodeo but have just killed a cat or a dog in broad daylight for your own pleasure, you have not breached the law. But if you keep the same cat or dog at home, any small bureaucratic fry can accuse you of “breaking anti-epizootic, veterinary, sanitary, and quarantine standards and rules”: we all know only too well how flexible these standards can be, depending on the content of your wallet. We can only envy public hygiene inspectors: should the amendment go through, they will be able not only to fleece small and medium businesses but also take on ordinary people who are reckless enough to keep an animal at home.
There is a simple and effective way out, though: catch, neuter, release (CNR). Under this formula, an animal is caught, neutered, given the required inoculations, and returned to where it was found. This stops uncontrolled reproduction. Stray packs vanish in a few years.
Here are some statistics. According to the study “Stray Animal Control Practices (Europe): a report into the strategies for controlling stray dog and cat populations adopted in thirty-one countries” conducted in 2006-2007 by the World Society for the Protection of Animals and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, there are five groups of countries as far as effective stray animal control is concerned:
Group one — absence of stray animals: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Group two — a small number of stray animals: Slovenia.
Group three — the situation is slowly improving: the UK, Ireland.
Group four — the stray animal problem still remains in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain.
Group five — the situation is deteriorating or is uncontrolled: Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
In all the group-five countries, the main method of stray dog population control is culling (shooting and poisoning), and the number of dogs on the streets is increasing.
A half of the fourth-group countries practice CNR on the national or regional level. It is also obligatory to register pet dogs in Greece, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain, Italy, Malta, and Serbia.
The population of stray dogs mostly remains stable there. But wherever the situation is worsening, the state is reluctant to tackle this problem, subsidized neutering is either absent or is exclusively carried out by civic organizations without any involvement of central or local authorities. Likewise, without any participation of the government, the populace is not educated about pet birth control. The third indicator — the absence of mandatory registration of pet dogs — is also common to these countries.
In Bulgaria, the UK, Ireland, Slovenia, and Croatia, the population of stray animals is on the decline. These states apply catching without release as a method of regulation, but they also practice subsidized neutering and systematic relocation of the caught animals. It is allowed to perform euthanasia on healthy stray animals, and the registration of pet dogs is compulsory. The populace is informed by civic organizations. The only exception is the UK: the registration of dogs is not compulsory, but the state educates pet owners.
Finally, in the countries where there are no stray animals (Belgium Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and Sweden), registration is not compulsory. The state educates owners in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland. There are state-subsidized neutering schemes in Norway only. These states practice catching and keeping in shelters without release, although animals may go to new owners. Euthanasia of healthy stray animals is allowed in these countries, except for Germany, but none of them practices it. In Germany, euthanasia of healthy animals is illegal.
The facts are self-explanatory. Culling as a method of control only results in a larger number of stray dogs. It is totally ineffective and exclusively practiced in highly corrupt and lawless post-communist countries. At the same time, all the countries that apply CNR in one form or another show a stable or diminishing number of stray dogs. Besides, this confirms a direct relationship between the number of stray dogs and the comprehensive measures taken by the central or local authorities in order to eliminate the factors that help encourage the growth of free-roaming packs — mandatory registration, education of the populace, subsidized neutering of pets, and dropping the practice of killing the caught animals.
Therefore, only comprehensive measures to prevent uncontrolled reproduction, taken by the central or local authorities, are effective for controlling the number of stray animals, irrespective of the method used (CNR, catching without release and lifetime sheltering, euthanasia of healthy unowned animals).
For this reason animal rights activists are suggesting clear and simple steps which would bring Ukraine closer to Europe, at least in this matter. Here they are:
real, not fictitious, liability for cruelty and killing;
tax sanctions on the breeding and sales of pedigreeless animals with the aim of reaping a profit;
legal sanctions for the uncontrolled breeding and abandoning of pets;
licensing animal breeding;
legalization of stray animal custodian schemes;
CNR throughout the country.
The point is not in the money but in the willingness to really solve the problem, provided our authorities really have it.
