Portuguese social media went into meltdown today following news that the association of municipal vets is ‘defending a return to kill kennels’.
Hundreds of comments have flooded in – almost all of them ‘outraged’ and totally against the proposal that suggests euthanising animals that haven’t been adopted from overcrowded shelters within 12-18 months.
Anvetem (the national association of municipal veterinarians) says the law that brought an end to animals’ being culled “simply doesn’t work”.
Municipal vets always feared as much (click here), as did some private shelter owners – but the years since the law came into force, have, in Anvetem’s opinion, proved it in spades.
Indeed last weekend’s ‘horror’ in an illegal shelter in the north (click here) has brought the issue back into sharp focus.
Says Anvetem, a return to the ‘old ways’ of killing animals after a period of time, could cut down on overcrowding and stop the proliferation of illegal shelters where animals often endure terrible suffering.
But cybernauts are having none of it.
Indeed, some are calling for the municipal vets to be ‘named and shamed’, so that they never unwittingly give them any business.
Others have named some of the vets, and are suggesting they should be ‘struck off’.
The chord of fury and outrage is molten.
Says IRA – one of the country’s most proactive animal rescue entities – “killing healthy animals is not what (vets) swore to defend” when they entered the profession.
In a slightly sardonic post, IRA says its ‘scientists’ embarked on a 90-second study during a ‘cigarette and coffee break’ and decided the solution is… ‘sterilisation’.
“Sterlisation/ castration drastically reduces the overcrowding of animals, not only in shelters but also on the streets”, says the post.
And those following IRA – and the Antevem ‘story’ broken by Jornal de Notícias – appear to wholeheartedly agree.
The overriding consensus is that a return to an era of killing healthy animals would be akin to ‘going back to the Dark Ages’.
The Veterinary Association (Ordem dos Veterinários) however is sitting on the fence (it says sterilisation is also ‘not the answer’. What it would like to see are owners being given ‘financial incentives’ to adopt, “like the elimination of IVA on veterinary visits and food”.
