What’s the remedy for cruelty?
Do we need animal protection legislation?
Ukraine is practically the only country in Europe without a ratified animal protection law banning acts of cruelty to animals. In fact, our parliament has passed this bill twice, but each time the president ordered a revision. The current session of parliament will once again deliberate the animal protection law, which will be submitted without any shortcomings to the legislative and executive branches — at least without any noticeable blunders that were detected in the earlier redactions, e.g., the ban on no more than three adult pets per apartment (even if these are tiny fish or spiders), the annual paid re-registration of pets, utility bills including the cost of rearing pets, and so on. Today, all European countries, all the Americas, and almost all Asian countries have such laws. The CIS countries seem to be the only exception. Vladimir Putin, in his third day as acting president of the Russian Federation, vetoed the animal protection bill and the document has remained shelved. The Ukrainian bill is small, just 18 pages, which is 100 percent smaller than the law that was ratified in New Zealand. Yet we badly need it because cruelty to animals is horrifically widespread in our country.
To dispel any doubts about this, a press conference was organized on Feb. 17 by animal right protection activists, who played a video made at a local rendering plant. The sight was mind-boggling. I saw optimistic citizens, who are convinced that stray dogs and cats caught by animal catchers are shot or put to sleep. In reality, the cartridges or chemical substances for this purpose are too expensive for this municipal service. I don’t want to describe what I saw, because it was horrible. All I will say is that they use tongs, grinding chambers — and poison. The question is: which of the heroes in that videotape is the real animal? In the so-called animal shelter at Borodianka the dogs are eating each other because of lack of food, says Tamara Tarnavska, head of the SOS Animal Protection Society. Proof of this is the videotape. This goes on despite the fact that the municipal service receives close to five million hryvnias from the city budget. A fee per animal is paid to those who catch stray animals — e.g., 75 hryvnias per dog.
“So these dog catchers are not loath to catch perfectly domesticated animals out for a stroll, but they steer clear of pregnant stray bitches; they leave them alone to “proliferate.”
But dog catchers are not the only threat to animals. Civic organizations are seriously concerned about dogfights that are legally banned but practiced (video footage is available). There are complaints about street photographers, who own monkeys. According to Volodymyr Boreiko, director of Kyiv’s Ecology-Culture Center, monkeys, restless and disobedient as they are, have to be broken in for two weeks by professional trainers using sticks, beating them to break their will and make them malleable for posing for photographs on the street. “Circuses are an Auschwitz for animals,” notes Boreiko, adding, “It is a generally known fact that a team of bears was forced to walk on their hind paws simply because their front ones had been burned with a red- hot iron.” Hunting is legally banned, but takes place at VIP dachas.
Of course, once the bill is ratified these violations will not sink into oblivion; many of the facts listed above are already prohibited. But nabbing the perpetrators will be much easier to do with the right law, which can be used as the basis of changes to the criminal and administrative codes. In addition, this law will regulate a number of daily problems, like banning private ownership of wild animals. Right now you can keep a giraffe on your balcony. Another factor has to do with presentability. Such a law is required in Europe, where we are striving to enter, no less than the UN Convention on Human Rights.
As for the problem of homeless animals, the same approach is offered: sterilization and institutionalization. A few shelters could easily be maintained on the five million hryvnias that the city gives to dog catchers, especially considering that supermarkets would rather support such endeavors with free food rather than foot the cost of unsold products. But Tarnavska says that bureaucrats simply do not want to bother with the issue of homeless animals.
