guardian.co.uk,
Associated Press in Kiev, Thursday 17 November 2011
Ukraine has
bowed to pressure from western animal protection groups and called for an end
to the killing of stray dogs before the Euro 2012 football championship takes
place in the country next summer.
The
environment ministry said on Thursday that it was urging all Ukraine's mayors
to build animal shelters instead.
Thousands
of stray dogs have been killed in Ukraine over the past year – often poisoned
or injected with illegal substances in an effort to clear the streets before
the championship takes place in June – outraging local and international animal
protection groups.
"Today
I am publicly turning to all city mayors – let us stop the deaths of those poor
stray animals for half a year and build shelters together," Mykola
Zlochevsky, the environment minister, told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The
statement followed a meeting with representatives of Naturewatch, a British
group campaigning against animal cruelty in Ukraine. "This is a fantastic
victory for Ukraine, its citizens and its animals," John Ruane, the head
of Naturewatch, said.
It remained
unclear how the ban would be enforced. Ukraine has a large stray dog
population, numbering tens of thousands in big cities, and building shelters to
house the animals would take months.
Serhiy
Syrovatka, a spokesman for the environment ministry, said the government would
adopt legal and other changes to make the moratorium legally binding, adding
that mayors who disobeyed would face punishment.
The
ministry intended to help manage and finance construction of shelters,
Syrovatka said, adding that dogs that could not be housed in shelters would be
sterilised and released.
He said
funding such measures would be hard when the Ukrainian economy is relying on
international loans.
The
minister's comments appeared to suggest that the six-month ban was a temporary
measure aimed at quelling criticism before Euro 2012. It was unclear whether
the ban would remain in force beyond the championship.
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