THE MAJORITY of people have no faith in the authorities to carry out adequate animal welfare practices with over 87 per cent believing that Cyprus does not have a proper welfare system, according to a survey released this week by the pet protection organisation, Cyprus Voice for Animals.
“The results are not far from what we anticipated since animal welfare societies are the first to have felt the hardships,” said Cyprus Voice for Animals’ president Mary Anastasi.
The survey of 1072 participants targeted both English and Greek speakers all over the island, revealing what they really thought about animal welfare.
Key concerns raised were the lack of action by the relevant authorities to tackle animal welfare issues, such as neglect, abuse and poisoning among other things. A whopping 87.8 per cent said that Cyprus does not have a good system for implementing animal welfare legislation, with those who answered ‘no’ believing the main problem to be that authorities are not interested in the issue. Another reason is the lack of adequately trained personnel.
In addition, 70.2 per cent believe that the Veterinary Services, the relevant authorities, do not fulfil their role adequately, with 32.7 per cent believing that an animal welfare police force should be set up.
Over 84 per cent said they were willing to pay a €10 annual tax, which would apply to all tax payers, to fund a well-organised system of animal welfare and protection of pets.
The police do not fare much better in the survey with 70.3 per cent of participants answering that they thought the police fail to tackle animal welfare issues. Over 22 per cent believe that they are simply not interested while over 44 per cent gave other reasons such as ignorance of the animal welfare law and the belief that animal cruelty is not within their duties.
The survey revealed that not only do 60 per cent of participants believe that the majority of pets do not enjoy good living conditions but 62.2 per cent believe the same for farm animals.
Participants also showed a considerable lack of faith in the state dog pound, with over 63 per cent stating that if their dog was lost they would not feel happy with it being kept in the local authority’s dog pound.
Other suggestions include setting up a citizen’s hotline and sponsoring animals.
The Veterinary Services responded to the survey by saying that “animal protection is high up on their list of priorities”, but they need the active support of other relevant authorities and members of the public.
They responded to criticism that they weren’t doing enough by focusing on one incident at a goat farm in Larnaca where large numbers of seriously malnourished goats were found. They immediately helped the cash-strapped farmer sell some of the goats.
