December 2004

TURKEY - LATEST NEWS December 28th 2004

gif.actiezwerfhonden.nl and www.barinak.gen.tr


"Please find below some quotes from a mail I received from Y.Ozgur Guven, member of a young animal wellfare group in Istanbul, Turkey.
quote: "A Tuzla Shelter Volunteer and we are working too much but as you know, things improve so slow. Now we are working so hard to find a prefabric to use as an extra quarantine part and also need one more to put dogs during post-operation because they put new operated under an web brhesthesic dogs in dirty and cold openair parts where you see in photos. And most of them die because of infection and some other reasons." unquote.

We forwarded the message to some people we know in Istanbul and below their answer.

quote: "I know that this shelter is the biggest killing machine in Turkey. We worked as volunteers there. It is impossible to change these municipality people. They treat animals like commodities. The shelter is located near a dump waste center. So that they can easily get rid of the remnants of the poor animals.

These fine young people that sent you the mail below started to work with this shelter. We believe that the more people gets involved in this, the better it is for the animals. I hope they can change something. Now at least we have an animal rights law. Although it is not implemented as it should still it is better than nothing. Please help these people with the best you can. They have a lot of energy, they have experienced help and I think they deserved to be pushed a head. I hope they do not loose the orientation like some of the shelter groups and they protect the animals, rather than just loving them and crying for them. So far they have taken the right steps. I wish they will continue to do so. They need to find some local sponsors as well as multinational possible help.

You know what we generally think about shelters and their possible usage. But this is all we have today and there is no solution soon. So I think we have to keep on helping until there is a more humane solution to the problem." unquote.

Please forward this mail!

Anyone in the position to help these people and animals please mail:
info@actiezwerfhonden.nl or piano@hotmail.com.tr

For pictures of the really harsh reality in the shelter, please go here: gif.actiezwerfhonden.nl

on 11/12/04 01:50, PIANO www.barinak.gen.tr at piano@hotmail.com.tr wrote: Dear Sir/Madam,
We are a group of people who came together after meeting through the internet. We have no affiliations with any associations or organisations. Our main concern is to do something towards the improvement of poor standarts of the animal shelters and rehabilitation centers in Turkey. Our group consists of many people from different professional groups eg. Academicians, artists, translators, arts and media etc..who are eager to help as much as they . Unfortunately we came to a conclusion that ìbelieving in somethingî is not enough on its own for us to achieve our aim, so we decided to ask for help.
Please allow me to summarize you the current situation:
There are total of 33 animal shelters in Istanbul running by the Municipality of Istanbul. Apart from one, all of them are in an extremely poor condition. The one which is in a better state then the others has come to its current state by the help of an ex municipality staff whose conscience was bothering him. It took him and the others 3 years of hard work to bring the shelter into its present state.
But what about the other shelters?...they are all in an extremely heart breaking condition. If you take a healthy animal there, they have a chance to live maximum for a week. The puppies born in the shelter usually die in 10 days. Since all the animals in the shelters are in poor health and seriously ill, people prefer to go to pet shops to get a pet, rather going to shelters. So it is becoming impossible to re-house the majority of animals.
According to the new ìanimal righst lawî which came into power in June, each local council has to have a certain budget for these shelters. But instead of doing this, local council are killing all the stray animals. One council staff confessed me that when they receive an informaton of a stray animal, they send their team and shoot the animal with an injection of Ihystenon which is a anestetic drug and kill them without taking any consideration that if the animal is pregnant or a puppy or just given birth. He begged for our help to help them.
We are trying to get well organised and send our formal complaint letters to the relevant bodies. Unfortunately this is not going to be enough. We need all the support that we can get from outside of Turkey too. We beleive that with these reactions and protests from abroad will make them stop killing the innocent lifes.
We are sending you some photos below that we took during our trip to one of the shelters on Sunday the 28 th of November 2004. Photos are self explanatory. (They also send a few pictures of "poisoning tragedy" which is done by municipalities, and the other shelter pictures. with the note: hope you will be able to bear what you see.

So we are asking for your help.

We are desperately in need of all kind of help, ideas and proposals.
Thank you very much,
Y.÷zg¸r G¸ven, President and spokeswoman
On Behalf Of The Animal Shelters Aid Group
Contact E-mails: barinak@muzikforum.com and piano@hotmail.com.tr

have a look also at gif.actiezwerfhonden.nl

"We are at our wits' end. The massive poisoning campaigns and the mass destruction of the Turkish stray dogs, and especially those in Istanbul, are increasing rapidly. As allways the fear of a Rabies outbreak is the excused used; however, recent scientific studies have shown that killing the stray dogs is not going to end a Rabies outbreak. In spite of the new animal protection law, nothing has changed so far for the stray dogs; we received new images of neglected dogs in the municipality shelters as well as pictures taken of stray dogs abused by passers-by, just for fun. The amount of pictures that we received in just the past 3 days is so enormous, we couldn't even begin to sent them all by mail and this is why we have put them on the internet. Because we realise that our website is visited by children, we felt it would be best not to link to the horrible images directly from our website. But we urge you to follow the link below, to see with your own eyes what is happening in a country thinking it's a worthy EU partner. gif.actiezwerfhonden.nl
Since the EU does not set priority to animal welfare and - protection, it is up to us, the citizens of Europe to let our voices be heard. By avoiding countries like Turkey, by protesting and writing mails. If you too, are filled with horror and if you believe that these atrocities and that such neglect should not be tolerated, please sent the mail below to the Prime-Minister of Turkey and to the EU committee in charge of the joining of Turkey.
Also, forward this mail to as many people as possible. We hope that the fact that the entire world will be looking and condemning these actions, will finally sent a signal to the Turkish government that it is high time to take some serious measures"

European Union Representation of the European Commission to Turkey


mailto@deltur.cec.eu.int
Turkish minister of Internal Affairs Abdulkadir AKSU
aaksu@icisleri.gov.tr
and mustesarlik@icisleri.gov.tr
gsekreter@icisleri.gov.tr
ozelkalem@icisleri.gov.tr




SIGN THE PETITION FOR KEI THE WOLF
LET'S GET HER BACK TO THE UNITED STATES.

And if you have a website, please add the banner with a link back to the petition www.petitiononline.com/Earle2/petition.html I THANK YOU AND KEI THANKS YOU



Message from Alan Cooper date 2 Dec 2004
www.cetaceadefence.org cetaceadefenceuk@yahoo.co.uk REPORT FROM FUTO 02 Dec 2004 with thanks to Jeny Wilhelms
please watch www.gjallarhorn.com/dolphin
I recently visited Futo, Japan and have pictures from the dolphin slaughters 11.11.04. The site also features dolphin watching in Japan. Please have a look, thank you.
Sincerely Jeny Wilhelms



A Comment on Canine Rabies Vaccination in China
From: Merritt Clifton 12 Nov 2003


Merritt Clifton, the Editor of "Animal People" www.animalpeoplenews.org has sent the following interesting observations on canine rabies vaccination policy and practice in China. - Mod.CP

We just returned from our 2nd investigative visit to China, where we somewhat unexpectedly spent much of our time doing rabies education. China has uniform compulsory vaccination of pet dogs, and it seems to be rather stringently enforced: if the owner is not carrying a vaccination certificate when asked to produce it, the dog is often killed on the spot.

Guangdong Province, however, where the 312 people have died this year, leads the universe in raising and slaughtering dogs for meat, and Chinese officials insist that these dogs are not at risk of getting rabies because they are confined. Therefore there is no requirement that dogs raised and sold for meat must be vaccinated.

The overwhelming majority of the dogs who have been killed as result of rabies outbreaks this year have been in dog meat production areas, where there are few if any pet dogs.

Merritt Clifton
Animal People
P.O. Box 960
Clinton, WA 98236
anmlpepl@whidbey.com

see also:
Rabies - China (Guangxi) (02): correction 20031114.2821
Rabies - China (Guangxi) 20031112.2802
Rabies, human - China (Guangdong) (02): correction 20030722.1794
Rabies, human - China (Guangdong) 20030721.1783]
.................cp/pg/mpp



DR. CARLOS N…GRIER, VETERINARIAN, SPEAKS OUT... (English)

"In our clinic we often receive animals that are deliberately poisoned with the intention to kill them.

We know that the same happens in all clinics in the Algarve because this is a common practice in this part of the country. We think that this is a cruelty and has to be end. Therefore we would be glad to be of assistance to all who could help to change this situation.

We would be pleased to co-operate with all persons, national and international public organisations to drastically reduce or even stop this barbaric custom.

It seems to me that it is essential to involve the municipalities, as they are responsible for the gathering and sheltering of abandoned dogs, a task they neglect altogether and consequently contribute to the uncontrolled growth of that population.

It is important to make the tourist industry aware of its responsibility, as it is often reported that at some times of the year in places like golf courses many animals are poisoned to avoid any "inconvenience" to the tourists. It is also important to request the G.N.R. and the Police to find and charge the culprits. Persons and organisations in the field of animal protection should be called upon to mobilize their contacts to better the situation.

Once again, we would like to state that we are willing to co-operate with anyone who can help change this situation radically in the Algarve and the rest of Portugal."



FALA O DR. CARLOS N…GRIER, VETERIN¡RIO... (PortuguÍs)

Na nossa ClÌnica recebemos frequentemente animais que foram envenenados com o claro propÛsito de os matar.

Sabemos que o mesmo acontece em todas as clÌnicas do Algarve, sendo tal crime pr·tica comum na regi„o.

Cremos que tamanha crueldade deve terminar e portanto colaboraremos com grande satisfaÁ„o com seja quem for que possa ajudar a mudar este estado de coisas.

Gostaria de colaborar com todas as pessoas e entidades nacionais ou estrangeiras interessadas, para se reduzir drasticamente ou atÈ se conseguir acabar com esta b·rbara pr·tica. Parece-me essencial envolver as C‚maras Municipais, que tÍm ultimamente negligenciado a recolha de canÌdeos abandonados, cujo n˙mero aumentou assim enormemente.

Importa sensibilizar as ind˙strias hoteleira e turÌstica, pois em redor de recursos de lazer como campos de golf aparecem em certas alturas do ano muitos animais envenenados que assim j· n„o "incomodam" os turistas.

Seria tambÈm importante pedir ‡s diversas polÌcias que apurassem as responsabilidades individuais dos autores de tais crimes.

ConvÈm envolver todos os caridosos com os animais, pois poderiam sensibilizar os demais quanto ‡ situaÁ„o.

Finalmente, informo mais uma vez que estamos sempre prontos para colaborar com quem quer que seja que possa contribuir para alterar radicalmente esta situaÁ„o no Algarve como tambÈm nas demais regiıes de Portugal.