Fw: KANDY DOGS ARE STILL SAFE, BUT...

[Guest guest]

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Padma

aapn

Wednesday, December 07, 2005 10:53 AM

KANDY DOGS ARE STILL SAFE, BUT...

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

Yesterday again we spent three hours at the courts waiting for our case against

the municipality to be called. When it was finally our turn, we were informed,

that the the municipality has once again asked for more time to file objections

and the Judge has given them another week. So on the 14th we'll sit there again,

looking forward to the data on rabies in Kandy, which Dr. Jayasinghe, the

Municipal Vet.Surgeon is supposed to produce in courts since weeks now in order

to justify his killing of 360 dogs in August. Actually even if there had been an

increase of rabies, the killing would not have served any purpose, but that

hundreds of sterilized and vaccinated dogs had to die even though there have

been no cases of human rabies in Kandy since the Catch-Neuter-Return Programme

started, is a crime, not only in our view, but also in the legal sense because

the courts had given a permanent order in May, that the humane method should be

continued and not be obstructed by the KMC. What a big obstruction this

killing-spree in August had caused, apart from the pain caused to the dogs and

their feeders or owners, we saw in these last few months: so many new dogs

appeared in the city and still we could not catch all of them and get them

neutered. Thanks to the Tsunami Animal Welfare Trust we are getting a bit of

help now with two catching nets and two catchers coming to Kandy for the weekend

to train our people with these nets (... christmas present for the Kandy dogs,

as Dawn from HSI put it).

 

At the same time we are setting up field-clinics, but hardly get a chance to

use the municipal common halls because we do not get the permission from the

Vet.Dept., so we do our clinics in private homes, temples or setting up tents.

Inspite of all the obstructions we face, we are happy that the court case at

least keeps the dogs safe because, having no data in hand, Dr.Jayasinghe does

not dare now to give a killing order again. We hope he will have to face a

punishment for what he did in August. Even though he keeps telling everyone,

that he is only a government servant carrying out orders of the Council and the

Mayor, we know from a council-member, that it was he, who convinced the Council

and the Mayor to take the decision by giving wrong informations, creating the

impression, that Kandy is a rabies-endangered town. Good, that he will have to

put his cards on the table next Monday.

 

While we struggle here in Kandy to reduce the dog-population, we hear about

meetings in Colombo discussing the new rabies-elimination-act to be formulated

and we are very surprised, that the Ministry, even after the no-kill-policy has

been released by the Cabinet, still considers the draft, which has been

submitted by Mrs.Siva Obeysekara, which does in no way protect the ownerless

dogs from being destroyed, but will in fact create more ownerless dogs because

in Sri Lanka charging a registration-fee will only lead to dogs being abandoned

by their owners or feeders because apart from the pedigreed dogs obtained for

money by rich people, most dogs are not intentionally aquired... people feed

them leftovers out of compassion, but they will not be willing to pay for them.

Of course we also would like to bring Sri Lanka to a state, where each dog has a

responsible owner, but for this vision to come true, the population will have to

be controlled first and the only way to achieve this is

mass-sterilzation-programmes for owned and stray-dogs. The objection we hear to

this frequently, is, that it is too costly to do this islandwide. We know of

course well how costly it is because the donations we receive for this purpose

are never sufficient to cover all of Kandy and all the surrounding villages, but

the Government should calculate long term and set funds aside for this now

before the population grows further. We hope, that the discussions held in

Colombo will lead to a humane and effective solution. In the meantime we appeal

for donations, so that in Kandy we can set an example to the rest of the country

and proof that ABC works. We are happy to note, that KACPAW too has started

setting up field-clinics again, that will help to achieve a good coverage

sooner. However both Organisations, KACPAW and SOFA have a big challenge to face

because the mentality of our people here is still misled by the notion, that

dumping of puppies is the easiest solution. As they dump them at the KACPAW

shelter, they also do it at the SOFA transit-home and right now we have to take

care of 130 dogs there. Therefore please support our efforts. That the dogs

cannot be killed by the Municipal Vet.Dept. is great, but we need continous

support to keep the clinics going.

 

Hope our appeal is being heard and will come back with more news next Monday.

 

Regards

 

Padma

 

(Treasurer of SOFA)