AR-News: Ukraine Terrible Abuse

Fri Aug 29 12:14:57 EDT 2003

From: Marijo Gillis
Subject: Ukraine Terrible Abuse

Ukraine: Rights Activists Protest Treatment Of Stray Animals
By Valentinas Mite
Ukrainian animal-protection organizations are concerned over the plight of
stray animals in the country. Activists say stray animals are treated
brutally before being put to sleep and that there are no laws in the country
governing the rights of animals. Officials say they are performing a public
service by ridding the country of such animals, which can carry diseases.
Prague, 31 January 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Mahatma Gandhi said the greatness of a
nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its
animals.
Animal-rights organizations in Ukraine say there are no laws regulating the
treatment of animals in the country and that strays are often treated very
cruelly before being put to sleep. The authorities reject these charges and
insist they are clearing the country of stray animals, which spread
infectious diseases and often attack people.
Andrei Kurach is the head of the Western Ukrainian Society for the
Protection of Animal Rights based in Lviv. He said: "This problem of lack of
money and lack of legal regulations ends up in the situation where here in
Lviv -- and not only in Lviv, in the whole of Ukraine -- there are no
[proper] shelters for animals, as is the practice in the whole world. And
stray animals find themselves in [processing] factories."
Tamara Tarnavska is the head of the Animal Protection Society (SOS), based
in Kyiv. Tarnavska told RFE/RL that in Kyiv, a municipal organization called
Animals in the City is responsible for catching stray dogs and taking them
to shelters. She said the company treats the animals with great cruelty.
Tarnavska alleges that in order to earn extra money, employees skin the dogs
alive to sell their fur, a practice that makes the pelts more valuable. Fat
from dogs is also sold on the black market. Many in Ukraine believe such fat
is a cure for tuberculosis. Tarnavska said that 3 liters of dog fat costs
nearly $100.
Last October, activists from SOS went on national television with former
employees of Animals in the City who revealed that stray dogs are often
caught using an inhumane poison and sometimes die slow, painful deaths. The
activists used hidden cameras to film instances of such animal cruelty.
Tarnavska said the film caused an uproar in Ukraine but that the company's
practices haven't changed. She said that employees of Animals in the City
continue to catch animals by injecting them with a paralyzing poison that
acts as a muscle relaxant. "After being poisoned, an animal, as well as it
may happen to a human being, is paralyzed but remains conscious and dies
after 15 minutes of agony. It presents an opportunity for a dog catcher to
take the animal from the street because it cannot move. But the death of
this animal is terrible. What kind of humanity you can speak of in this
case? I don't know," Tarnavska said.
Animals in the City denies it uses such a poison. However, in 2001, the
Ukrainian magazine "Krik" published an interview with a former employee of
Animals in the City who confirmed that he had used the poison while working
for the company.
Valeriy Budko is the deputy director of Animals in the City. Budko denies
that his company uses inhumane methods. "[The poison] diethylene is allowed
to be used in Ukraine, but we shifted to a softer form [of tranquilizer]. We
make a mixture from several legally permitted drugs and, as a result, a dog
is not able to move for some time. Later, it comes back to its senses and is
brought to the point of screening," Budko said.
Budko said some stray dogs that are considered dangerous or seriously ill
are put to sleep on the spot. The rest are killed after 10 days if the owner
does not show up.
Budko said Animals in the City is performing a positive service for the
city. He said that the number of stray dogs is growing drastically in
Ukraine but did not give specific figures.
Viktor Svyta is a deputy chief physician at the Ministry of Public Health.
He supports Budko's claims, saying nearly 100,000 people were bitten by
stray dogs -- many of them rabid -- in Ukraine in 2000.
Kurach said stray dogs are put to death in that city in a different, but no
less cruel, manner. "The people who worked in this [animal-processing]
factory told me that animals are put on a metallic plate [and] slopped over
with water to have better electricity contact. Then an electrode is put on
the nose of an animal, and at the same time the electricity is turned on.
The animal dies. I have never seen this execution, but I was told that
animals never die instantly and always suffer," Kurach said.
The bodies of the dead dogs are reprocessed into meal and fed to chickens
and other farm animals.
The Brigitte Bardot Foundation, based in France, campaigns for animal rights
around the world. Salem Sissler from the foundation told RFE/RL that the
situation in Ukraine, as described, is not unique. "It does not surprise
me," she said. "I saw it in Romania [several years ago]. I know that they
can kill dogs with electricity. They can beat them to death. It's very, very
brutal," Sissler said.
Budko of Animals in the City said that activists such as Tarnavska and
Sissler are standing in the way of disease prevention. "If a mayor [of some
Western city gives an order], the order is fulfilled. But here, protests
stand in the way because people like Tarnavska. She has managed to organize
a group of old women around her, people who are not completely sane, I would
say. This is the team that she works with and that she uses as her
instrument. Of course, from such sources comes all this secret filming and
lies in European newspapers," Budko said.
But Tarnavska's supporters note that the British Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals recently recognized her for her
animal-protection activities.

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