Poison awareness campaign in effort to eradicate slaughter of animals

THE CYPRUS Association for the Protection of Horticulture has begun an awareness campaign aimed at farmers and pesticide salesman over the abuse of common agricultural substances widely used to poison dogs and cats

The poisoning of strays has become a widespread problem in Cyprus – with domestic pets often caught in the crossfire, and fears that a child could be one day be hurt or even killed. Anyone wanting to kill animals can easily buy poison over the counter from agricultural suppliers, even though its use to kill dogs and cats is a criminal offence.
Now, the Association for the Protection of Horticulture is seeking to make people more aware of the abuse.

Its president Eric Sokiroglou told Phileleftheros newspaper yesterday that the practice was illegal and immoral and “disrespectful of life and a lack of civilisation of our culture”.

Farmers can buy the poison ‘Lanate’ by the kilo for their crops, but even the smallest dose could kill a child, let alone a domestic animal.

The poison is put inside pieces of chicken and hidden in bushes for stray animals to find. Death is immediate.

The association says it will carry out strict checks on the sale of poison in a bid to wipe out the practice. The first measure will be to put up posters in the shop windows of the establishments that sell the poison to deter buyers.

The Paphiakos Dog Shelter said yesterday it had campaigned to raise awareness of the problem in the press for the past 16 years, and was currently running new campaign in the Express Paphos magazine. A petition has also been prepared and will be sent to the European Union in Brussels in an effort to shame the Cypriot government into “getting its act together” on the problem, said the shelter’s Christine Panayiotou.

Panayiotou added: “Our organisation has used birth control on animals since 1992. But it will take 10 years and £20,000 to really make a difference.”

Agriculture Minister Timis Efthymiou has said he is personally concerned about the problem and will soon convene a meeting of all parties involved. Efthymiou hopes to find a solution to stop sales of the product to non-authorised persons.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.