Animal welfare | Anima challenges Canidrome, AAPAM to televised debate

Animal welfare organization, Anima, have called on representatives of contender animal rights group, Abandoned Animals Protection Association of Macau (AAPAM), and the Canidrome (Yat Yuen) Company to agree to a televised debate over the merits of the renewal of the greyhound racing facility.
The MSAR government is expected to decide on the renewal of the facility before the end of this year.
The Times had access to a series of letters whereby Anima president Albano Martins notified Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong, Vice-President of AAPAM Josephine Lau, and the Canidrome Company, of his intention to go head-to-head in a televised debate.
In the letters, dated April 19 and 20, Martins makes repeated claims of previous letters addressed to the organizations that have gone unanswered. In writing to Secretary Leong on April 20, Martins notes his hope that the debate “can clear any doubts regarding the economic, community and animal welfare issues that should lead to the closing of the Canidrome by our government,” adding that postponement of the closure of the track is “only eroding our tax income and allow[ing] innocent animals to be killed.”
In a separate letter to AAPAM Vice-President Josephine Lau, dated April 19, Martins accuses the animal protection association of collaborating with “voice of the industry instead of your colleagues who work for the welfare of animals.”
Furthermore, he implies that AAPAM’s history of co-
organizing events with the Canidrome Company “even after the public disclosure of the devastating killing news” of greyhounds there has given the organization an interest in supporting the facility.
The Times requested a comment from AAPAM but received no reply by press time. According to AAPAM’s website: “Our objectives are to avoid killing, not to abandon and to treat animals well [… and] to pronounce that animals also have their right to live and be respected.”
A third letter addressed to the Canidrome Company itself accused the company of fooling “ignorant people” and of financing AAPAM “to divide the field of animal welfare organizations.”
“We really don’t care too much about what you and they do!” it adds menacingly.
Martins says he wants the debate held in English and on the public broadcaster’s show next week, should TDM agree to air it. The Times contacted TDM to see if the debate would go ahead but a representative said only that they “could not comment on that at this time.” Daniel Beitler