Well it has been a busy time over the last week or so for all people and organisations associated with the SAV alliance.
Our main campaign recently has been to attempt to get the Serbian government to introduce new (national) legislation regarding the humane treatment and sterilisation of stray and roaming animals (cats and dogs).
Also, recently, it was decided to stop the Petition which we have been running called “Serbia Suffering” http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/serbia-suffering. This petition is aimed at the European Union (EU) Parliament asking them to take action against Serbia for not enforcing its own animal welfare legislation and for causing untold suffering to many thousands of animals as a result.
Over 5,000 signatures were collected for this petition in a very short period of time, which shows the worldwide strength of feeling there is about animal suffering in Serbia. Originally, the aim was to collect 1,000 signatures, but we have passed that and passed it fantastically, with 5,539 signatures comprising 246 A4 pages ! – a full copy of all the signatures, worldwide locations of people, and their comments to the EU on the Serbian issue can be seen in the following pdf file.
serbia-suffering-petition-pdf
A formal letter on the issue of Serbian animals, the killing methods used by the authorities and a full copy of the petition will be sent to senior members of the EU Parliament and Commission during the next week. Many signatures on the petition are from citizens of the EU, and so now we ask the EU to represent its citizens as it always claims it does, and take action for the animals suffering daily within Serbia.
OIPA, http://www.oipa.org/ have produced their own excellent five page letter to the Serbian government and authorities regarding stray animals and their management. The letter was sent to:
Mr. Boris Tadic – President of Serbia
Mirko Cvetkovic – Prime Minister of Serbia
Sasha Dragin – Serbian Minister of Agriculture
Zoran Micovic – Director of the Veterinary Department of Serbia
and can be read via the following link:
In English: oipa-letter
In Serbian: oipa-letter-spetembar-132008
( Thanks to Translator – Madame Tanja Zivic- friend of “Help Animals”, Beograd http://www.helpanimals.org.rs:80/ )
Copies were also provided to both the European Parliament and to the European Commission.
On the OIPA web site (given above) you can see many campaign issues relating to stray animals, including the European Convention Protecting pets and Stray Animals, http://www.oipa.org/abandonment/europeanconvention.html,
‘Bruno’ the police dog in Serbia http://www.oipa.org/abandonment/alerts/bruno.html ,
stray dogs in Serbia http://www.oipa.org/serbiadogs.html ,
the killing of street dogs in Serbia http://www.oipa.org/abandonment/campaign/serbia/images.html
and some great images of the EPAR shelter in Serbia https://serbiananimalsvoice.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/photographs-of-the-epar-shelter-from-slavica/ for rescued animals which has been built with a contribution from OIPA http://www.oipa.org/abandonment/campaign/serbia/contributeoipa.html .
SAV have also written a four page letter to the Serbian government and authorities (as with the OIPA letter) during this last week, and both serbian and English versions can be viewed at the following pdf file links:
pismo-predstavnika-sav-mark-johnson-predstavnicima-vlasti-srbije-1409082
letter-14-sept-2008
Our great campaigner in Serbia, named Slavica, who works so tirelessly for all animal welfare issues, and who has written to the government on this issue many times before, and never had any formal response to her letters, has today (Monday 15th September) forwarded on both the OIPA letter, the SAV letter and a copy of the “Serbia Suffering” petition to everyone at the Serbian government, all of the Serbian authorities and to very many people at the Serbian press and media. At the time of writing this, we are already getting very good responses back that much of the media has been looking at the letters and information provided, asking for a national ‘No Kill’ sterilisation policy for all stray and roaming animals within Serbia.
We are also calling for a full public education campaign regarding stray / roaming animals, and how the public have a duty to ensure that their animals are not allowed to roam the streets, mating with other animals and continually adding to the massive numbers of animals, which despite such cruel ‘control’ methods by the government and authorities to reduce numbers, just never appears to work. National sterilisation, vaccination, microchipping and the creation of a national owner database is the only way that the authorities of Serbia will ever start to get a reduction in animal numbers.
For your information, in recent studies undertaken by the HSUS in the United States of America,
One unspayed dog and her offspring can lead to 67,000 dogs in six years.
One unspayed cat and her offspring can produce 400,000 cats in seven years.
(Source – The Humane Society of the United States, “HSUS Pet Overpopulation Estimates,” 2004)”.
Multiply these numbers by all the stray and roaming animals within Serbia (many thousands) and you can see why under their current policies, the Serbian government and authorities will never even start to reduce stray and roaming animal numbers by any significant amount. Serbian taxpayers will be paying taxes for a never ending policy that is doing very little to meet its objectives.
Both OIPA and us at SAV are confident that we have put forward a valid, sensible and logical argument for humane stray and roaming animal population management in Serbia. Now we have to wait for a government response, if we are going to get one.
SAV has asked the government to respond to their letter by Monday October 13th. SAV are willing to accept a longer response time if it is needed, but this is our intitial deadline. If nothing is heard by this date, then we will be contacting the EU to informe them of our letters to the Serbian authorities, and their responses, or lack of !
Serbia is looking for EU accession (membership), and so it must show that it is at least taking on board issues which currently have meaning within the EU nations, and animal welfare is one of them.
So now we have to wait and see what happens in the Serbian government in the coming weeks.
OIPA and SAV very much hope that the Serbaian parliament will at least decide on some kind of humane animal sterilisation programme for the near future, as we have said, this is the only way to ever start to reduce animal numbers on a national basis.
We will be giving further updates on progress, if there is any, in the coming weeks.
Please Note – all the above photographs are specifically related to Serbia. They form part of an extensive photgraphic library held by organisations of the SAV alliance.
Special thanks go from SAV to Translator – Madame Lubarda Jelena – friend of Help Animals, Beograd, for her assistance with letter translations, and also Korjenic Zlata of help Animals, Beograd, for invaluable assistance and keeping the ball rolling.
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, SERBIA (Central Serbia: Capital - Belgrade) and (Serbia | Leave a comment »
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 