Written Declaration 26 on dog population management adopted!
FOUR PAWS EUROPEAN POLICY OFFICE:
“Big success at the European Parliament: Written Declaration 26 on dog population management adopted!”
date of publication: 13 October 2011
Brussels 13 October: After four months the Written Declaration No 26 on dog population management in the European Union has gained more than the majority of the Members of the European Parliament. With this result the Representatives of the European citizens have recognized officially the harm of the growing number of unwanted animals in Europe and solution strategies and want the EU Commission to be active.
The adopted Written Declaration 26 Initiated on 06th of June by Daciana Sârbu (Romania/S&D), Adina Valean (Romania/ALDE), Elisabeth Jeggle (Germany/EPP, Romeva i Rueda (Spain/Grens), and Janusz Wojciechowski (Poland/ECR) provides the possibility for the European Parliament to call on the European Commission to do an assessment of the situation of dogs, consider companion animals within the new Animal Welfare Strategy and the Animal Health Legislation. “Herewith we have reached a big next step towards dog responsible ownership measures in Europe” said Marlene Wartenberg, European Policy Director of VIER PFOTEN, Brussels.” And we are glad to such a good result after four months of giving intensively information in Brussels and Strassburg by a good teamwork together with the Eurogroup for Animals and IFAW”.
There are estimated 120 millions of stray animals in Europe, and only the adoption of comprehensive dog population management strategies and the promotion of responsible dog ownership will allow to control the number of unwanted dogs. The uncontrolled growing canine overpopulation and the lack of common standards for dog population management in the EU poses a threat to community health and safety by uncontrolled spread of diseases from dogs to other animals and to men and leads to enormous suffering of the animals.
Most importantly Written Declaration No 26 calls on the European Commission to ensure that the principle of Article 13 of the Treaty to recognize animals as “sentient beings” will be respected by Member States. A first step to be done is the identification and registration of all dogs and cats in the future. To have responsible owners will allow to manage dog population and help to avoid cruel mass killing of stray dogs and illegal puppy trade. Indeed, Identification and Registration will permit a better traceability and consequently a better health of dogs and men.
Press Release: French
http://www.carodog.eu/
http://www.vier-pfoten.eu/
FOUR PAWS Stray dogs campaign 2011
Merci de ton partage Phil…Superbe blog 😉 Bisous et bonne soirée :love:
It appears that this law will address the future populations of Cats and Dogs, but you are silent on the massive already existing strays poulation of the EU countries. Identification of sentient beings /(ie: Cats & Dogs) is a great first step, but meanwhile all the 120 million existing strays are breeding and continue to exacerbate the problem.
How is this addressed in the new law?
On the written declaration, Ask the Commission to encourage the Member States to introduce the mandatory
identification and registration of every dog.
I’ve just heard today that Vlad Craioveanu Today they PL 912/2008 has been discussed in Romanian Parliament, and they REFUSED to return the law to Parliamentary Commission on Public Administration to take out the “euthanasia”. Tomorrow the law would be subjected to SECRET ELECTRONIC VOTE (so we would not be able to know who and how they’ve voted). Romanian Chamber of Deputies are about to promulgate MASS SLAUGHTER OF STRAY ANIMALS, by orders from Traian Basescu.
People are writing to government, deputies and officals, keep our fingers crossed..
This, of course is the answer I expected unfortunately. It is very sad that the mass euthanasia is going to be accepted, but it is necessary nonetheless. I will tell you this in all candor— it will not matter that cats and dogs are given sentient being status. Pet owners will continue to be negligent in their duty to spay or neuter their pets. Pet shops will continue to sell light colored popular breeds of pets while the “unwanted” breeds and individuals are carelessly drowned, gassed or electrocuted.
It’s the people that need to be punished for breed and color discrimination of cats and dogs. No pet shops. No puppy or Kitty mills. Man must find a way to limit litter size of both these species so that the population growth more closely matches the human rate.
Impossible. Unwanted cats and dogs will continue to be slaughtered, no matter how well intentioned the laws.
Thank you for the links and awareness of this situation!
Merci pour tout Phil
Bonne journée
Gros bisous 😉
The reason that mass slaughter of feral pets can’t work, is that many will escape the round ups. Those will either be the “lucky”, or the very smart. Those animals would find they have less trouble finding food afterwards, because the population just decreased for a little while. And since they weren’t spayed or neutered, they’ll start breeding, and it doesn’t take all that long, before you have a huge population of feral animals again. AND, these would be the offspring of the “lucky” and the smart.
So then you might try to round them all up again, but you’d get the same results, EXCEPT that the population of feral pets would gradually become a genetically robust bunch of mixed breeds with a lot of cunning. These would be very dangerous, since they would have no socialization regarding humans, who they might begin to look upon as prey.
I’ve heard of places where they capture feral cats, spay and or neuter them, and then release them back to where they were found. Then they have somebody regularly going to that place, and putting out food for them. These feral cats develop their own society as a Colony with a territory in which they range. Breeding in the wild drops off, because the Colony cats can’t breed. Since they are regularly checked on, health problems can be dealt with, and new feral cats trying to join the Colony are easily identified, and then spayed or neutered.
Rodent populations in the vicinity of Feral Cat Colonies decrease drastically, and sometimes businesses will adopt some of these feral cats to patrol warehouses.