On November 22, a statement made by French actress Brigitte Bardot spread all over Ukraine. She demanded the government of our country to stop torturing the stray animals. And already on the next day Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov reacted to it. He instructed the Ministry of Internal Affairs to “intensify the control and to stop the cases of animals torturing.” The Ministry of Regional Development and Building and housing offices received an order to “make a serious inventory of stray animals problem in all cities, towns, and villages.” The Ministry of Regional Development and Building also has to realize a plan of creating decent conditions for stray animals housing in specialized establishments and provision of preventative measures concerning the uncontrolled increase in number of animals. And, probably, the main thing is that Mykola Azarov commissioned the heads of respective ministries, offices and the heads of oblast state administrations to conduct consultations with the community on how these problems can be resolved. Though the community itself and The Day have been writing about this repeatedly, and tried to appeal to the government through official statements, propositions, pickets, various actions with a demand to solve the stray animals problem. Also, the ministry’s press service said that the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine has already initiated the creation of the nationwide system of building modern shelters for dogs in major Ukrainian cities. They have addressed the city councils of oblast centres with a request to allocate some territory for building shelters and expressed readiness to fund such construction.
UEFA also watches the stray animals situation that has formed in Ukraine. The official website of this organization says that “further to being contacted by various animal protection organizations about the situation of stray dogs in Ukraine, UEFA has repeatedly contacted the Ukrainian authorities, asking for appropriate measures to be developed that respect the dignity of animals.” It also says that “following several encounters between UEFA and the Ukrainian authorities, Ukraine’s Environment Minister Mykola Zlochevsky officially announced earlier this month an immediate ban on the killing of stray dogs.” Less than 200 days are left before the beginning of the European Football Championship. Is that enough time for our officials not only to grow kinder, but also to keep the promise to treat the dogs properly?
COMMENTARY
Asia SERPINSKA, head of Kyiv Association for Animal Protection:
“We do not see any specific actions behind the words, because we have been talking about the stray animals problems for a couple of decades. And a single municipal animal shelter has not been built over 20 years of Ukraine’s independence. Instead, municipal services that are engaged in catching and killing the animals are being created in big cities lately. For example, Kharkiv Adopt-a-Pet Center received a piece of land to build a shelter on. They even had a construction project. They have been collecting money for that by asking for donations in the streets. And recently, according to the local administration decision, this land was taken away from them. The justification was that nothing has been built there over a long period of time. But it is impossible to collect a big amount of money in so little time! And they want to give the land for construction of a so-called shelter with unlimited control over animals. They are investing millions of hryvnias in this project, I have a copy of finance plan. And what is the unlimited control? They bring 50 animals today, and kill them, they bring 50 more tomorrow, and kill them too. This means that the government does not want to build a shelter where dogs would live, where they would be neutered and vaccinated. The same situation is observed in Donetsk... That is why I think that you cannot trust what officials say: instead of creating shelters, where cats and dogs can live, shelters where they are killed are created. It is not possible to resolve this problem in a civilized way over a short period of time. A nationwide program, that will include the plan of helping the animals and the preventative measures (what should be done to prevent new stray animals from appearing), has to be created.”
