The MPS' decision was due to public outcry over the issue.
According to the Star, State executive councillor Datuk Tang See Hang said the authorities would be working closely with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and other animal rights groups to ensure that the animals were handled and caught only by trained personnel.
The decision also had to do with safety concerns expressed by various groups that both the public and the strays could get injured if the competition went ahead.
That aside, I am just so glad the MPS decided to call off the competition and to address the problem in the most practical and professional way.
Kudos to them!
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18 comments:
Good that they scrapped the competition, but the issue remains, too many stray dogs!
i'd say bloggers had a hand in this. you were one of them who posted it on sept 6, the very day the mainstream media reported the proposed competition. i've never had dogs for pets by many of my friends had/have them and i've always been fond of them. back in the 70s my uncle who used to live in kota tinggi had a couple to guard the farm and his kids.
like you said in yr earlier posting, ena, the council people in Selayang must have run out of ideas. they have the money but they just don't know how to keep things done.
so why were we surprised with the level of incompetence at ministries, as has just been exposed again by the attorney-general. duit ada, idea kurang.
thanks for saving the dogs.
p.s. i have a good friend, a blogger called Big Dog. you have saved him for me.
Nuraina,
For the BN to have such an idea in the first place is very frightening, altho it's now scrapped.
We don't become cruel and evil overnight. First we go for the animals, then we go for each other cos our conscience already numbed.
Yay!
Kudoz to you too Ena,
For speaking out about this humane issue.
For speaking up for the defenseless and without a voice.
For speaking straight to those who accuse you of pandering to emotions at the expense of your journalistic training.
For standing your ground in the face of those who want to make it a "saja2 nak mencari salah gomen" thing.
Kakdah's point is pertinent, too many strays around. How do you go about reducing them?
Whatabout the crow shooting competitions? They are just as cruel. How come no hues and cries about it?
What can we expect from this people next? Licence to export dog meat anyone?
Nuraina,
We are, my wife and I, a hundred percent animal lover, once in Canada we had a dog named Brownie he died of old age and we buried him with full dignity given to a close family member or a friend. Brownie would guard our precious Jen when she was a tiny tot. Brownie would give a short and soft yelp if Jen was awake and we will run upstairs to check.
Muslims are adverse with dog, another one of God's (it also means Allah) creature. Dog was considered as unclean because in the time of the Prophet in Medina, some "religious" person deemed the canine species as unclean, and indeed they were at that time, and indeed some of them are today, you do not make a habit of patting strays right. But I have no problem with Don's big Alsatian who will jump at me whenever we came for a visit, Sascha will wrestle with me before calming down. At the end of the day we are just living and breathing animal like Sascha, but we must conquer our fear and live like a real warrior and then we will be able to get rid of or bias, prejudices or ethno-centricity, then we can be totally live at one with our environment! To some degree I am proud to say I have achieve, but I need to do more.
As for the strays, like any other animals, if they pose danger to society by all mean we have to find humane ways to deal with the problem, but not a fuc%ing shoting competition for heaven sake!
Dear Nuraina,
Give yourself a good pat on the back, you have certainly earned it.
Not only did you help raise awareness of this deplorable act, you steadfastly stood your ground against the ensuing verbal onslaught of your detractors.
Well done Nuraina & niece.
p.s. it's a relief to know that the council is enlisting the help of the right NGO (SPCA & not WWF). ;D
kakdah: that is a problem that the MPS has got to resolve in the best possible way it can.
As reported, it is already doing that with the right party/ies.
H&L: I know it is terrible that the MPS could have even thought about such a thing.
But, they are not bad people. It's ok... trial and error. People learn from mistakes.
Zawi: Oh.. I am one of those who do not like crow-shooting. The sound of the shots never fail to give me a fright.
They have done this in Bangsar and Taman Tun.
I always believe that we have to get to the roots of the problem.
Crows are attracted to places where they can scavenge for food. I find that the more sampah a place has, the more attracted crows are to it.
Just like the stray dog problem. Catching the strays is effective but short-term.
The MPS should enforce its by-laws on dogs and so forth.
It takes time but it has to start somewhere.
Pasquale: Dogs make great companion and they are faithful to their master/mistress.
But they need your companionship and commitment as well.
For me, it is a question of hygiene.
Still I am remembering this:
"There is not an animal that lives on the Earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but forms part of communities like you. Nothing that We have ommited from the Book, and they all shall be gathered to their Lord in the end." - Al-Quran 6:38
Mekyam & Sesat: Thank you. Just one of the many who were against it,
What about all those many stray cats I see that should be eliminated?
Tante,
It really is a relief that the council finally came to its senses. It finally realised that it can work TOGETHER with the SPCA, for example, to solve the problem of strays.
So solving the problem of strays (and perhaps other animal-related ones) need not be cruel after all.
Am glad all the uproar made a difference!
Thanks again, Tante, for highlighting this!
If we allow one local council to come up with half baked ideas to rid themselves of one problem, will the same be done to overcome other similar problems....i.e. start another shooting contest for, say, homeless vagrants? or perhaps, ugly looking houses? or ugly looking people or anything else they deem to be a nuisance?
What a big joke we Malaysians have become and to think my tax money goes to paying their salary....
Slade: I think stray cats do not pose a big problem like stray dogs.
the fear is that one can be bitten by a stray dog. and when they are in packs, well...
stray cats are easier to deal with,
Jay: i'm glad it turned out the way it did!
anon@3:57PM: you have the power to change things...in your own small way.
Dear Nuraina,
Indeed, stray cats do not bite as dogs do. They pose other problems. All unregulated populations of formerly-domestic animals are on one hand an animal welfare issue, and on the other a palpable socio-environmental concern. An unchecked stray cat population can turn feral, and stray and feral cats have are acknowledged problems in many countries (see, e.g., http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=vpc14; also see http://eied.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive/publications/cat-impacts/index.html; http://www.geocities.com/singapore_cats/BukitMerahView.htm; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0907_040907_feralcats.html).
Stray cats carry pathogen (such as rabies and other parasites -- not just dogs). Further, a familiar sight may be our cats catching birds. True enough, stray and feral cats prey on birds of various species, and Malaysia being a country rich in bird species could see declines (or may have already seen declines) in bird populations and diversity as occurs in other countries with feral or stray cat problems (see for example, Diamond, J. and others, 1989, "The past, present and future of human-caused extinctions, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences, Vol. 325, pp. 469-477).
Stray cats, like stray dogs, also prey on rubbish bins and rubbish bags.
Uncontrolled populations of any stray animal is a social issue that requires attention.
In our country, the focus has been overwhelmingly on stray dogs, whereas problems involving of stray animals such as stray cats are not given due attention for a number of reasons. However, a stray animal problem remains a problem, and public administrators should be more holistic about the matter.
For public administrators, there is no lack of guidance or methods for the management and controlling of stray cats (see for example, Ash, S.J. and Adams, C.E., 2003, "Public preference for free-ranging domestic cat (Felis catus) management options, Wildlife Society Bulletin, Vol. 31, pp. 334-339). Likewise, there are other management options for controlling stray dogs than the one formerly proposed by the Selayang municipal council.
slade: yes, of course. of course. couldnt agree more.
im just so glad they scrapped the stupid idea.
PJ: We all are, we all are...
thanks for visiting.
And I really think it was great that you and other bloggers publicized this issue to a broader audience. If it wasn't for your blog posting, I wouldn't have known about this at all. Public opinion and their input is precious in public decision-making and I'm glad that the decision-makers took heed of public views. It is refreshing to see in action how blogging can contribute to this, by inject vitality into the democratic process (i.e., spurring public-public decision-maker interaction)!
Thanks.
slade: we all do what we can...in our own little way.
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