[Editor's Note: The following letter is
self-explanatory, but we are printing it as is, because we felt that
"Americanizing" it would take out some of the poignancy of this
situation. Help is desperately needed, but we believe it will take a
concerted effort by national groups to get the ball rolling. If this
touches your heart like it touched ours, let the national animal
protection organizations you support know that you want them to make
this a priority. There must be a solution.]
Apologize me for writing you a long letter and take your
time but I can't do anything more after this time. Yesterday, in Turkey,
ministry of agriculture published an order to all the municipalities
that, in case of any rabies doubt in a region, all the dogs in that
region must be killed !! This is being done in Turkey since a month but
this one is the first official and legal published order. Since
yesterday all the TV channels are broadcasting dogs killed by officials
and people themselves. One of the images was; a child was putting his
arms around his dog ( he was taking care a dog living in the street ),
crying and saying "I know you will kill her, don't do please", but the
people took the dog, and in front of him, while the dog was looking at
their faces and swinging her tail, they shot her with guns. These are
what we are watching on TV's nowadays.
The worst thing is, the common
people, especially who lives in rural and villages have all taken their
pistols and shooting dogs as hunting parties. The hunters also started
to do this with pleasure. As two TV channels ( channel ATV and TGRT )
and a newspaper ( Sabah ) is constantly publishing since a month that
rabies is great danger, dont come near any dog in the street, they may
all have rabies, all the dogs in the streets must be killed, your
children are in danger, don' t give our taxes to vaccinating dogs, just
kill them, the people who reads and watches them started to hate all
dogs. One who feeds dogs yesterday around his home, now shooting them
with guns.
This is the worst thing of all. The number of rabies cases
are the same with last years, but these TV's ( nobody knows why ) and governors are making a great campaign of fear. Maybe this may help,
Turkish government is afraid of its tourism earnings. When some foreign
news comes as foreign newspapers and TV's broadcasts these, and an
afraid of protest to come to Turkey arises, all tourism companies in
Turkey are saying the government to stop killing them, at least doing
these latently. Maybe you can influence some of your big tourism
companies to declare that, our people will not come Turkey if you do
insist on killing dogs.
Government says they want to finish this problem
urgently and collecting and vaccinating them will not be so, but we
can't make them understand that killing is not a solution as you can't
kill them all and after some years again there will be thousands of dogs
in the streets. They will not do anything after the number minimizes and
wait for years and then will start this killing campaign again. Somebody
must stress them the right solution. Sorry for taking your time, but we don't know what to do more.
Go on to Pet Theft in
Michigan and Indiana
Return to 30 January 2000 Issue
Return to Newsletters
** Fair Use Notice**
This document may contain copyrighted material, use of which has not been
specifically authorized by the copyright owners. I believe that this
not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes a fair use of the
copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your
own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.