“Center for Animal Welfare Legal Protection”
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TUZIK IS REGISTERED IN A SHELTER - Tatiana Nikolaevna, pardon the straightforward question, but where are the real results of your Department’s efforts? The department was set up in the year 2000, wasn’t it? Stray dogs are running about in packs, Vas’kas are fighting with Murkas at night, disturbing the residents... - You mean, we’ve failed to get the better of nature? O.K., let us look into the situation quietly and in detail. Since 1936, the budgets of Russian towns have included the financing of activities aimed at controlling the population of homeless animals. The tools used to implement such activities are known all too well: the animals were caught and slaughtered. Despite this, the numbers did not decline. In the course of preparations for the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, virtually all stray dogs were exterminated. Incidentally, many western athletes, participating in the Games, took a rather poor view of this method of sanitary treatment of the city. So, what? Five years later, the population of homeless animals in the city was restored 100%, but during this time the number of rats and mice in the city sky-rocketed. The authorities turned to biologists. Studies reveal the following: the trapping and slaughtering of animals are useless. When the territory that used to be inhabited by the dogs becomes vacant, females give birth to litter made up of females only! It takes 8 months for the number of stray dogs to get restored to previous size. (Comment by site editor: The data quoted by T.N. Pavlova, alleging that under certain conditions “females beget females only” – is a fruit of her imagination that emerged for good reason, however, as a result of liberal interpretation (with a slant “to her liking”) of pseudo-scientific theories of A.D. Poyarkov and his associates! We have no published scientific data, confirming such stable mechanisms of dog population self-control (probably such data do not exist in nature)! Furthermore, some foreign scholars disagree with the existence of any stable mechanisms of self-control of domesticated animal species population, including the dogs (even feral dogs).) -Shall we throw ourselves upon the mercy of sharp-toothed victors, then? - Civilization has long formulated the rules of peaceful co-existence of man and animals in the conditions of a large city. In the West, stray dogs and homeless cats are not killed, but are trapped, neutered and released in their former habitats. (Comment by site editor: Neither in Britain, to which the authors of Moscow neutering program refer (in Britain, all dogs are trapped on mandatory basis without further release!), nor in the U.S.A. trap/neuter/release programs (TNR) similar to the Moscow one are carried out, the difference being that in the case of Moscow program, the dogs are released in the streets. TNR programs are carried out, for example in the U.S.A. and Britain for homeless cats only. Which means that referring to the Western experience of TNR program application in respect of cats by way of justifying and lobbying TNR programs for dogs is brazen ecological cheating, because environmental consequences to the population and the fauna of cat-oriented and dog-oriented TNR programs are incomparable and require absolutely different measures of population and fauna protection scale-wise. Such programs for dogs are only carried out in relatively backward economically areas of South and South-Eastern Europe, bordering Asia as well in the southern developing countries, e.g. in India, where there exist pariah dogs that for millennia have been wild inhabitants of the local landscapes. It should be added that these regions are devoid of the rate of commercial dog breeding, so typical of industrialized countries, and lack the fashionable practice of keeping dogs as companion animals. Hence, economic measures of controlling the population of homeless pariah dogs (e.g. through differentiated taxation) will not work. Besides, the level of social security of the people in these countries is far below the European level: against the backdrop of abject misery and other problems, homeless animals are not a priority.) Therefore, we decided to set up a similar humane system of handling homeless animals. According to biologists, the dogs usually bite people, when protecting their litter and at the time of dog weddings. If there are no puppets and weddings, there no reasons for aggressivity. - Yet, the dogs keep biting humans: a painful and fearful experience, do you agree? - Any actions yield results, when they become a system. Criticizing without suggesting anything in return, or insisting on restoring the earlier practice of slaughtering homeless animals is a very convenient stance, without any risk of loss. Taking part in establishing an effective system is much more difficult. There are around 25 thousand stray dogs in the capital city. (Comment by site editor: According to some state services and nature-conservation institutions, there are no less than 100,000 stray dogs in Moscow.) Why so many? They are capable of finding food in the city: the wastes of megapolis vital activity. Perhaps, city health services should tighten controls. Besides, last year, our services neutered eight thousand stray female dogs. But in autumn the city-dwellers were back in town from their summer cottages... and again the streets were flooded with five thousand pets by the year end. Pardon me, it’s easy to demand that things should be put in order, and how about self-criticism? You know, I have 20 pets at home: 16 cats and four dogs. - Is this professional attachment? - No, love of animals is one’s outlook. One of the cats was brought to me by a woman I hardly knew. “Please, take it” – she implored. As it turned out, the woman’s husband had thrown the cat out of the window. The cat had fallen down from the 7th floor – and survived. (Comment by site editor: Today, the number of stray dog packs and their density in Moscow residential areas are such that a cat, having fallen from a balcony, will inevitably be torn to pieces in a few hours by a pack of stray dogs that happens to be nearby, because pet cats, having found themselves in the conditions of the street, unnatural to them, usually sit for a while immobile, trying to regain orientation, clinging to the ground, and do not have time to realize where they can hide, when stray dogs attack them. That the cats in Moscow are in a situation of distress and are being exterminated by stray dogs on a mass scale has been confirmed by an official sociological polling of 400 guardians of homeless cats throughout Moscow, carried out in June, 2005 by All-Russia Center of Public Opinion Study, in which 50% of the respondents stated attacks by stray dogs over the last two years as the main cause of death of the cats. This is also corroborated by the applications from citizens addressed to our organization). In the West, such an offence would entail a prison term. We must be responsible for the creatures we tamed, and not shoulder the responsibility on a compassionate neighbor, society, authorities. In one of the animal shelters, I saw two Dobermans, a Curzhar, a Rotweiller and Staffordshire terriers. The pedigree dogs were New-Year presents. A year ago, all of them were purchased for the holiday, toyed with and disposed of. What do you call this? The system will be effective, if there are enough shelters for dogs in the city. At present, we have nine. Virtually, all of them are private, one belongs to the city. The authorities set up a good animal shelter in the North-Eastern District. In the North-Eastern District, they are beginning to solve this problem. However, as early as in 1994, Moscow Mayor signed a decree authorizing the establishment of state-owned shelters for domestic animals. If the decree had been executed, there would be now 18-19 animal shelters that would have improved the situation substantially. (Commment by site editor: A documentary proof of the current situation in Moscow, when exercising the citizens’ rights to health protection (i.e. trapping of definitely aggressive dogs, biting humans, without subsequent release) depends on whether or not there exists a shelter for stray dogs in a particular administrative district. Therefore, constitutional rights of the citizens depend on where the citizens live, which contravenes Art. 19, Part 2 of the RF Constitution and Art. 17 of the RF Law “Fundamentals of the RF Legislation on Health Protection of Citizens".) - But animal welfare activists often tell us horrible stories about terrifying practices dominating those shelters. - Keeping 400-500 dogs is a complex production process. It is not uncommon that dogs fight one another in the shelters, die, the puppets fail to survive. That’s the way of the world. Bu the problem should approached in a professional manner. At present, the city is governed by the law “On Animals”, a new law titled “On the Keeping of Domestic Animals” is in the pipeline. - There are a few thousand horses, monkeys in Moscow; lovers of exotics have even pigs, crocodiles, parrots of all descriptions as pets. Will these be governed by the new law? - Alas, no. I disagree with this, but the deputies of Moscow City Duma have a great mind to pass a law, pertaining to home-kept pets only. Although homeless horses have already been encountered in Moscow. This notwithstanding, there are many good points about the law. To begin with, it will be uncompromising towards the owners of pet cats and pet dogs who breach the law governing the keeping of animals and communal life regulations in the city. For example an owner, throwing a dog in the street will face a $300 penalty. Al the dogs will, in the course of three years be marked with special micro-chips. If a pet dog bites a human, the defaulting owner will have to pay $ 100. A heavy fine is stipulated for walking dogs without leads and muzzles, for inadequate behavior of dogs in the street. Administrative action will be taken by way of penalizing the dog owner, leaving his pet without food or water, unattended. It is a matter for regret that the law contains no norm regulating the turnover of animals, so far: such norms should restrict the citizens’ right to own an animal. Even though measures, stipulating one’s responsibility for a purchased animal, are crucial. However, according to Article 137 of the Civil Code, an animal is property. Meaning that all property rights are regulated by the federal legislation. I am convinced: dogs and cats should not be slaughtered, instead, a system that is being built should be completed. In Britain, animal laws are 30 years old. Whereas we are only in the fifth year of drafting new regulations of cooperation with our smaller brethren. Vladimir RATMANSKY The “Moskovskaya Sreda” (‘Moscow Environment’) weekly, No 21 dated June 15-21, 2005 |
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