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Over the years PAFi has sent hundreds of letters, petitions and pleas of help to the EU, different kinds of decision-makers and authorities. Recently we managed to contact a MEP who kindly encouraged us to come up with suggestions on how to improve animal welfare in EU.
Here are the suggestions we sent to the EU.
Suggestions for EU to improve animal welfare
1) Homeless dogs and cats of European Union countries should always be treated according to either local or EU's common animal welfare law. In practice this means e.g. that dogs should not be captured by using methods that cause pain, placed in storages that violate the animal welfare law (e.g. cramped spaces, lack of water and food, neglect of injured and sick animals), dogs should not be put down unless for animal welfare reasons and in such cases to be euthanized solely by a veterinarian in a humane way and not e.g. with a poison syringe straight to the heart.
In addition the countries should be obliged to arrange extensive spaying programmes for female dogs and cats (neuter and release) and aim at vaccinating all the homeless dogs and cats. Only veterinarians are to perform neutering/spaying and when operating they would have to use proper anaesthesia and not merely e.g. sedative. In cities that have animal shelters, the unspayed female dogs and cats should be kept separated from the males(until the females are spayed) in order to prevent females from reproducing at the shelter.
According to the animal welfare law, abuse towards homeless dogs and cats and causing pain to them should be considered a crime. Homeless dogs and cats should be captured only if it's justified e.g. for neutering/spaying and vaccinating, for reasons concerning animal welfare (a sick or injured dog or cat must be given proper care or taken to be euthanized) or if the animal would be transported to an animal shelter that meets the standards of the animal welfare law.
2) EU should efficiently provide supervision on animal welfare matters to countries where severe stray dog problems exist. These countries nearly always also have a long history in brutal mass murders of dogs (e.g. Romania, Bulgaria). There should be an established instance (officer or team) dedicated to such countries, supervising the implementation of the animal welfare law. The countries should also be made responsible for reporting of their progress to the EU. If the country could not fulfil the agreed terms, EU should have to have some kind of a substantial sanction system.
EU should establish a channel where individuals (whether they're people or organizations) could report their local authorities' neglect or animal cruelty crimes if the supervisory instance of the particular country wouldn't react to any of these animal cruelty reports. The citizens should have the possibility to report directly to EU if the local supervisory instance would appear to be corrupted or e.g. the decision-makers of the cities couldn't cooperate with local animal welfare associations.
3) The animal welfare law should also extend to abandoned horses and donkeys since in many EU-countries these domestic animals do not receive proper care. E.g. in Romania the treatment of horses is poor among Romanian gypsies but the authorities do not seem to have the means, resources or will to intervene in this animal cruelty.
Here are few examples:
http://koti.phnet.fi/proanima/Maltreated%20horses
http://www.proanimalsfinland.net/content/view/535/56/lang,english/
4) The local authorities should take an animal under custody if it's obvious that the owner has neglected or abused the animal. There should be a regulation for the terms where the authorities should perform the necessary measures, i.e. taking the custody of the animal and legally transferring the ownership of the animal e.g. to a local animal welfare association that would find a new home for the animal if needed.
The local authorities should be obliged to cooperate with local animal welfare associations and support their work in developing the local animal protection e.g. by offering affordable sites and rental buildings. The authorities should sign care agreements with local animal welfare associations e.g. for injured animals or animals taken under custody, to cover the main part of the costs.
The local authorities should be obliged to investigate and report all animal cruelty reports and proceed according to country's animal protection law. In case the authorities should fail doing this, individuals could report this to EU (via animal protection alert channel), thus EU would take appropriate measures.
5) In the problem countries veterinarians should be systematically encouraged to cooperate with local animal welfare organizations. Financial incentives system should be created for this purpose. Veterinarians operating in problem areas should receive regular additional medical and animal protection related training. Veterinarians with positive attitudes towards animal welfare can be great influencers among local communities.
6) Animal slaughtering practiced by individuals should be monitored more efficiently and prohibited when slaughtering doesn't meet the EU regulations. Now for example Romanian gypsies often slaughter animals when intoxicated. This causes animals great suffering and lengthening of pain before death.
In Romanian villages it is common to castrate horses without any kind of pain relief or assistance from a vet. This should be stopped immediately. The problem countries should have municipal vets who would tour even in the most remote or poor rural areas, providing medical treatments for animals and monitoring the overall condition of horses, which is generally very poor.It should be criminalized to abandon animals e.g. horses wandering around the outskirts of towns (being often hit by cars and badly injured). This kind of practice should meet the characteristics of an animal abandoning and hence should be prohibited. Horses should be kept in a tether or a paddock.
7) EU should sponsor animal welfare related media campaigns e.g. in TV in such countries where animals' rights are particularly poor e.g. in Romania, Bulgaria, Baltic countries.
8) EU should provide grants and support for small local animal welfare associations and for development of animal protection on a local level in the new EU member states, where animal protection is on poor state. Currently small animal welfare associations are completely left out from country specific and EU level support. Information on EU animal welfare grants is very difficult to find from the Internet and the currently available EU-links lead to nothing concrete.
Small local animal welfare associations have very limited resources to implement large scale projects (e.g. countryside development), that would enable EU-level financial support. For small associations it is nearly impossible to find proper sponsors from the corporate world. Also financial support from large international animal welfare organizations is out of reach for small associations.
9) In the countries where the situation of animal welfare is particularly poor EU should sponsor, in close cooperation with local animal welfare associations, animal welfare related education at schools and colleges e.g. in Romania, Bulgaria, Baltic countries and Spain. Alike young people should be encouraged to take responsibility of animals and participate as volunteers e.g. in local animal shelters.
10) Currently in countries like Romania and Bulgaria the animal welfare matters are entirely left on the shoulders of small local associations. Due to this distorted situation many small associations with very limited resources are forced to work till exhaustion, sacrificing their personal lives and livelihood in order to help animals in need. These small associations in Romania and Bulgaria very often also run animal shelters and do they best in taking care of stray and abandoned dogs without any financial support from local authorities. These shelters are nearly always very primitive and the working conditions most challenging (e.g. Pro Animals Romania).
Local authorities should allocate reasonable funds for small associations (e.g. in Romania and Bulgaria) for building sufficient animal shelters (for cats, dogs, horses, donkeys) and to hire staff.
Now obtaining medical veterinary services is often a challenge for small or remote associations. EU should provide movable veterinary clinics that would cooperate with local animal welfare associations. These movable clinics would provide regularly service in remote or problem areas.
c 2009 Pro Animals Finland registered association
7:11 PM
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