Hear ye, Hear ye, Please hear this…

Source: http://www.iapwa.org/

All Perbandaran and Bandaraya councils, and shelters – please hear this…

The International Aid for the Protection and Welfare of Animals (Iapwa)’s first campaign is focused on transforming the lives of the companion animals in Sabah.


Our project is based on the expertise and experience of two of the world’s leading organisations in the field of animal welfare; Dogs Trust and Battersea Dogs Home. This best practice template is based on their experiences planning, setting up and running the SOS Oradea project in Romania – a successful programme that’s made a huge difference to the lives of 3,500 street dogs.


Every year, millions of animals around the world are killed, sometimes in the most inhumane manner, in an effort to deal with the overpopulation issues. This has been proved ineffective as a method of control as the vacuum left is soon filled by other animals that move in to utilise the resources available, or by the existing animals in the area to raise more offspring.


In order to address this problem, a unique project was born in a bid to show that the only way to humanely reduce the number of street animals is through a Trap, Neuter and Return (TNR) programme.


The Problem


Having large numbers of stray animals is an issue for a number of reasons. The animals themselves are prone to disease, can be involved in accidents sustaining terrible injures and will live short and difficult lives. They are also often seen as a nuisance and give rise to public concern due to the risk of spreading diseases such as rabies, toxocara and ringworm.


The number of animals in an area depends on the resources available to them such as food, water, shelter and safe areas to raise their young. Other influences that may affect the numbers are endemic diseases and the safety of the area, which will impact on the life expectancy of the animals. If we look at street dogs, one bitch, in her lifetime can produce up to eight puppies a year. So if she is lucky enough to live for five years, she could have produced more than 40 more street dogs. If there are 500 bitches on the street, in five years they could produce 20,000 puppies. And then THEY will start having puppies.


These numbers serve as an indication of how quickly a dog population could increase. They are, however, largely academic as they will always depend on the resources available to them. If there isn’t enough food, water and shelter, they won’t survive. The area can only support a limited number depending on these resources. Once that optimum number is reached, the population of animals would remain more or less stable. While that may sound like good news, it isn’t. The larger the number of animals competing for the available resources is, the harder, more desperate and ultimately shorter their lives will be. This is the situation most street animals are in and unless something is done to stop the number of young being born, this miserable situation will continue.


The Solutions


Every country in the world has a different way of dealing with the problem. The solutions, while they vary in their methodology, come down to 3 choices.


Kill the animals


Capture them and put them into shelters


Control or eliminate the animal’s ability to breed and so gradually reduce their numbers.


Killing the Animals


There are no cheap ways to kill the animals that are also humane and so the choices left are often poisoning which leads to an agonising death or shooting which is often inaccurate, leaving animals to die in agony of terrible wounds or hunger. Some countries that use this method also have a strict ‘one dog, one bullet’ policy to make it even cheaper, making the chance of injury over death far higher.


Even if any of these options did work, which they don’t, as long as the resources are there to support the street animals, outside dogs and cats will simply come in to take advantage of them, or the remaining animals will just breed more prolifically.


Capture them and put them into shelters


Shelters can be a lifeline for many animals and offer protection to those that are unable to cope on the streets. We intend to work closely with and support existing sanctuaries as part of our projects to offer care to those in need.


However, in areas where there are many stray animals, sooner or later these shelters will be full and the animals who haven’t been captured will continue to breed to utilise the available resources.


More and more shelters will need to be built, whilst more and more animals will continue to breed. It is an endless and expensive task and poor, overcrowded shelters can sometimes lead to their own problems of poor health and welfare standards.


So, whilst this option is far better than the first, we also need to deal with the root of the problem.


Control or eliminate the animal’s ability to breed and so gradually reduce their numbers


Whilst this may seem like a slow way to deal with the population numbers, it is the ONLY method of control that actually works. The way the project works is simple. The animals are caught and taken from the area where they are living. They are then castrated or spayed, treated for zoonotic diseases, marked in some way so they can be identified at a distance to prevent them being re-caught and then put back where they were found. This, along with an education and rubbish control programme is the basis of Trap, Neuter and Return (TNR).


There are also additional benefits to this scheme. Neutering male dogs, for example reduces potentially aggressive incidents both to other dogs (which can result in fatal injuries) and humans as it has a marked effect on behaviour. Neutering also eliminates the incidences of reproductive system diseases and certain cancers. It is only this method of TNR population control that will show any effects on the street animal’s numbers and health that will benefit the animals and the community.


There is debate as to whether males should be castrated in preference to spaying females as there is no doubt that castrating males is quicker, easier and cheaper. However, imagine a population where there are 10 male dogs and 10 female dogs. These dogs will breed and each of the 10 bitches will have up to eight puppies a year. So, at the end of the first year there will be around 100 dogs (the 80 puppies and the 20 original adults). If we caught 90% of the male dogs and neutered them, in the following year each of the female dogs will have up to eight puppies making the total still at 100 dogs including one very happy but exhausted male!! If however, we catch 90% of the females and spay them, the following year only one of the 10 bitches will be able to breed and so instead of having 100 dogs, there are only 28 (the original 20 adults and the 8 puppies from the one breeding bitch).


As you can see, it makes far greater sense to neuter both the males AND the females. This way, we’ll also be able to treat both sexes for zoonotic diseases and check their health.


What Now?


Although the problem has been identified, we recognise that there’s no easy solution. However, we strongly believe that the TNR project, as demonstrated so successfully in Romania, can and will make a big difference to the lives of the companion animals in Sabah.


We’re under no illusion that there’s a lot of work to be done before the programme is fully functional and we’ll be posting regular updates on our ‘News’ page to demonstrate our progress.


Lastly, we would like to say a big thank you to our dedicated team and passionate supporters who are all working tirelessly to achieve the IAPWA mission.
 
 
To the Perbandaran and Bandaraya councils:
 
Ready to learn?
 
Willing to learn?
 
Willing to change for the better? 
 
To everyone who loves animals: Please push and lobby for these reforms.  Please don’t say, “It only works in other countries, not in Malaysia.”  I’m tired of hearing this.  Please do not submit to this kind of mentality.  Even if the councils refuse to hear us, we do it anyway, in our own capacity.  Whatever we can do, whatever change we can institute, makes a difference.  Let’s BE that change we want to see, please.
 
We need collective effort here. 
 
Please let’s work together for a better life for our animals. 

P.S.  A note of thanks to KT Tan, for alerting me to the IAPWA website and the news about Sabah.