(LK) SOFA newsletter

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Dear Friends,

 

 

 

We have to apologize because our updates are very irregular and our website

too is very neglected. When we started this work ten years ago, we thought,

that soon many more animal-advocates will get interested and join hands with

us and the work-load will be less, but, even though we had a few new

volunteers coming in, the workload is becoming more. may be not because the

actual problems have increased, but we get notified of them more often now

as the word spreads about our work and our readiness to assist in any kind

of dog- or cat-issue.

 

 

 

While we tend to one-day-old abandoned puppies and match them with a mother,

who still has milk after her own litter has been re-homed, give

mange-treatment to street-dogs, and look after blind, old and injured

animals, the work we really set out to do - mass-sterilization of cats and

dogs - is being pushed into the back-ground. We still have our regular

clinics at the transit-home in Gohagoda and at the Tikiri-Shelter at

Megoda-Kalugammuwa, but the number of field-clinics have decreased because

of the time it takes to get them organized, and with so many permanent

inmates to feed, the funds available for sterilizations are also getting

less. We know about the options (euthanasia of animals, which have no chance

of adoption) and don't deny the logic. no doubt, population-control is the

only effective way of reducing the suffering of cats and dogs on the whole.

but it needs a different set of people to do this job, we are just not the

right people for that.

 

 

 

Of course we don't let animals suffer when they are sick and in pain, when

there is no cure, they need not die a slow and painful death, we surely help

them to have a painless way out of their plight. But to euthanize a healthy

animal. we know, that we may have do it at some point in order to avoid

over-crowding and running into financial disaster, but up to now we don't,

we just can't. However, the price for that is high: we work without a break,

we are always on our last penny, and sometimes, when people call us and ask

us to take in some pups or an injured animal, we just have to say sorry, we

are full up, we have no more space, every corner is occupied, which means we

let these animals die on the road, and in the night, before we fall asleep,

we feel the pain of these animals, which we left to their fate because we

just could not do anything for them.

 

 

 

So either way it's painful, but worse than this is the pain inflicted on

animals all over the world and so we are happy, that we can do at least

something for some of them.

 

 

 

When killing was still the state-policy to control the population, we

suffered a lot and all we could do, was to take into our care as many as

possible and to re-home as many as possible. Even at that time we

sterilized strays, but we always lived in fear, that at some point, they

would be killed. After we arrived at a no-kill-agreement with the KMC (Kandy

Municipal Council), we were happy for a short time because now the

sterilized animals seemed to be safe even out on the road, but then we had

to witness that the KMC did not keep to the agreement and even after the

National no-kill-policy was introduced by President Mahinda Rajapakse and

the KMC had its own sterilization-camps, we had to witness tragic

disappearances of sterilized dogs. Dumping the dogs somewhere far away

seemed to be the new method employed after killing was prohibited, but what

we always suspected, was confirmed two days ago, by the Public Health

Inspector of Gampola: after we had 4000 dogs spayed / neutered in Gampola in

2008 and 2009, now the Urban Council has openly returned to the killing of

dogs, and we are quite sure, that, more or less on the sly, it must be

happening everywhere. This is really bad news, but it does not change our

course: we will continue to sterilize as many dogs as possible and demand,

that they will be neither displaced, nor killed, even if we may not succeed

in preventing it. We cannot stop pointing out the proper way just because we

are facing opposition and defeat. The Mayor of Gampola may deny, when we

question him, just as the Mayor of Kandy denied when he was questioned

regarding the disappearance of the Wales-Park-dogs, but to let them know,

that we are watching, may let them think twice when they are planning

something in future.

 

 

 

Since a committee has been set up recently to look into the welfare-issues

and effectiveness of the government-sterilization-project and

animal-welfare-groups have been given a seat in this committee, we may be

able to use this forum too, to create pressure on the local governments to

act in accordance with the national policy. After all, in spite of all the

set-backs, animal-right-activist Sagarika Rajakarunayake has been able to

convince the President, that the killing of dogs does not stabilize the

dog-population as efficiently as a well-set-up sterilization-project, and

some other animal-welfare-activists have been tirelessly knocking the doors

in the Health-Ministry to get funds set aside for dog-sterilization and to

put the program on the right track, which seems to show some results now. So

this is definitely not the time to say we lost the battle, we just have to

continue the battle. Also our court-case continues and as long as we are not

losing it, the KMC is at least not openly killing.

 

 

 

If, with the help of the above mentioned committee, we can arrive at a

better coverage of the ongoing sterilization-project carried out the

Health-Ministry, SOFA lacking the time and funds for field-clinics is not a

big problem any more, then we can tend to the pups and the injured without

feeling, that we are neglecting our declared main-purpose, and if the

welfare-issues can also be controlled by this committee, we may even get our

own dogs operated by the Health-Ministry, but all this is still

future-music. until then we need your support to continue at least our

regular clinics and occasional field-clinics (around 200 surgeries per

month) and also to continue our rescues and shelter and adoption-program. We

can't tell you in words, how grateful we are to the wonderful people, who

enable us to do this work. Without them we would have to watch tremendous

suffering, unable to provide relief.