A group of cats found dead at the ‘Montanha Russa’ Garden in Macau stirred up outrage on social media after pictures were published online. The cats were reportedly poisoned: something that, according to the President of the Society for the Protection of Animals, Macau (Anima), Albano Martins, “is quite frequent” in Macau.
“Areas like Flora Garden and Guia Hill are on the top of the list of the locations where this happens frequently,” he told the Times.
Martins rejected the idea that the cats might have been poisoned by the rat poison that the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) uses, since that poison is not strong enough to kill a cat. “So, it must be that someone deliberately did it.”
Anima’s head blames “the lack of a real and updated law to protect animals,” recalling that the current law dates from 1975 and establishes only a small fine as penalty for people caught killing animals, ranging from MOP20 to MOP200.
Martins commented that other cases of animal abuse have arisen recently, including one where “a dog was beaten almost to death and then thrown out of a car.”
The organization suspects that “the animal was to be eaten by a group of five men from mainland China who were also responsible for beating it up. They just did not manage to do it because someone saw and alerted us to it.”
“It is becoming an increasingly common practice in Macau due to the increase in the number of people who come from China and are used to these habits, and because there is no law to protect the animals from this,” Martins said, recognizing that “it is not easy to create a law in a short period of time that really covers all the situations.”
Mr Martins recalls that “Anima, more than three years ago, issued a proposal for an administrative regulation to at least regulate the cases of cruelty while a complete law has not yet been drafted.”
In his opinion, “there is no reason to not do this, since it is very simple and needs only the approval of the Chief Executive.”
“We drafted that regulation. We categorized all the aspects of cruelty and took into consideration the law from another country, namely Singapore. We did all the work; we even had it done in Chinese, Portuguese and English and delivered all that to the government, but there were no developments [that might lead to the creation of] the law in the short term, which we do not believe will happen, at least not this year for sure,” he said.
“But we will not give up and we will strive at least for cruelty to be penalized. We will once more send a newly updated version to the secretary within the coming week,” Martins concluded.
Canidrome closure tops Anima’s concerns
The closure of the Canidrome is still on the top of the agenda for Anima, Albano Martins says. To back the proposal, Anima has the support of “an international collaboration of more than ten organizations, together with another few hundred in China,” he said.
“What we are doing is blocking from every possible way the export of greyhounds to Macau from every possible source. We have already blocked Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Our only concern now is the UK, but we are working on that with the local organizations, namely the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), that will help us in our goal,” the Anima president said. He added, “For about two months, the Canidrome has not been able to import any dogs! It has all been blocked, including through the airlines like Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Malaysian Airlines, which will not allow any transport of this kind.”
“If the government does not make this decision, we make it on our own and through our own means,” he concluded.
SHAME!