By Martin Hellicar
A DEBATE on animal welfare turned into a heated argument over hunting rights and wrongs at the House environment committee yesterday morning.
The committee also tackled the equally thorny issues of poison baiting, stray dogs and cruelty to pets.
Representatives of environmental and animal protection groups exchanged barbs with their counterparts from hunting organisations and the Game service.
Animal welfare groups charged that hunters were depriving people of the chance to enjoy the countryside and were wiping out wildlife. There was an urgent need further to restrict hunting areas and times and to tighten up licensing, the greens added.
Kokos Solomonides, of the Hunters’ Association, agreed there was a need for more rigorous testing for those seeking a hunting licence – his association has been pushing for this since 1973, he said. But he took exception to hunters being labelled, as he put it, “killers and black sheep.”
Solomonides claimed hunters were the true environmentalists on the island and, in an effort to prove his point, set out to recount the history of how the Hunters’ Association had come to be.
Committee chairman Demetris Eliades objected, urging Solomonides to get to the point. But the chairman eventually gave up in the face of Solomonides’s protests that he be allowed to say his bit.
“I’ll let you talk as you’ll obviously blow a fuse if I don’t,” Eliades joked.
“In 1945, the British governor of Cyprus was Sir Andrew Wright…” Solomonides began.
“What’s that got to do with it?” Disy deputy Marios Matsakis piped up.
“It is relevant!” Solomonides snapped back. “I listen to you for hours on the radio Mr Matsakis, so let me have my say.”
Governor Wright poured “tons” of DDT insecticide into swamps in an effort to wipe out malaria, Solomonides explained. “This would have wiped out all animal life on the island. It was five hunters who formed the Association in an effort to stop this – out of environmental consciousness,” Solomonides said.
“Today they say we are anti-environmentalists, but I’ve never seen greens fighting a fire or putting out a drop of water for game birds to drink,” he said.
No other country had more game reserve areas (240) than Cyprus, Solomonides claimed.
Maroulla Hadjichristoforou, of the Agriculture Ministry’s Environment Service, replied that environmentalists were not against hunting per se, but wanted the sport to be restricted “to species whose populations can stand it.”
She said a package of environmental law being drawn up by her service would ensure hunting was allowed “on the basis of a plan.”
“We need population management for game species,” Hadjichristoforou insisted.
It was the Game Service’s turn to claim affront.
Hunting was already conducted on the basis of scientific studies of prey populations, their representative insisted.
“Everything is under control, if this was not so we would have no game. Nothing is in danger. It is not hunting but other environmental problems that are hitting game numbers,” the Game Service stated.
Matsakis was highly sceptical of the service’s version of realities, and added that some game wardens were also hunters.
“Have you never thought that the two might not be compatible?” he asked the service’s representative.
“No, I don’t see why there would be (a problem),” came the reply. But the chorus of disapproval from deputies and greens forced him to concede that the service should “look into this”.
Turning to the illegal practice of poison baiting for foxes and other “vermin”, the committee was shocked to hear from the Veterinary Association that the Game Service had recently issued a statement warning that such bait had been placed in a particular area.
“How can the Game Service be announcing the placement of bait when it is illegal?” Eliades protested.
“It was only a scare tactic, we didn’t actually put out any poison, we don’t do that any more,” the Game Service representative replied. Hunters had been allowing their dogs to harry game birds in release pens in the area and the announcement was designed to discourage this, he maintained.
“This is ridiculous!” Eliades responded.
Pavlos Economides, head of the Veterinary service, asked for a copy of the Game Service announcement so he could investigate with a view to prosecuting those responsible.
“The Game Service put out bait all over the place even though is illegal,” Toulla Poyiadji, of the Cyprus Society for the Protection of Animals (CSPCA), charged.
The one thing everyone agreed on was the need to do something about the stray dog problem.
There are over 120,000 dogs on the island but only 5,000 of these are registered, the CSPCA told the committee.
The Veterinary Association warned that the situation was dangerous because the deadly echinococcus disease – transmitted by dogs to man – had re- surfaced in some areas.
The Cyprus Kennel Club said legislation forcing all owners to label their dogs existed but was not being implemented.
Solomonides backed the call for dog tagging, admitting many hunters were guilty of abandoning dogs in the wild.
Poyiadji said local authorities were not doing enough to control strays. Local government representatives begged to differ.
Poyiadji also took the government to task over cruelty to pets, saying it lacked the will to implement both animal welfare and environmental legislation.
“Environmental and animal protection laws exist, but they are not implemented by the relevant authorities. The whole situation concerning environmental and animal protection is confused, out of control and desperate,” she said.
Ioannis Diaouris, representing the police, admitted there was some confusion about who was responsible for what when it came to animal welfare.
Economides said securing convictions for animal cruelty was not easy. “We have big problems in prosecuting because many complain but few take on the responsibility of testifying,” he said.
There had been four convictions for animal cruelty last year, with fines of between £50 and £150 imposed, he said.
“It needs to be a collective effort. In other countries animal protection is done by private organisations. In Cyprus the government is more involved than anywhere else,” Economides said.
Poyiadji disagreed: “Animal welfare groups have no obligation to take on the job of the government.”
Eliades concluded that non-governmental organisations were doing their best to protect animals but the same could not be said of the government. “There appears to be confusion, lack of political will, lack of opinions even, on the part of the government,” the chairman stated.
The debate is set to continue at a future date.
