Street protests to complaints to prosecutor’s office

Animal welfare advocates held simultaneous protests in Kyiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday, September 25, 2012. Pro Life organization activists as well as non-affiliated concerned citizens – the latter were pathetically few in numbers, especially in the capital, where not more than 40 people had turned out – came to the walls of the Cabinet of Ministers building in Kyiv and the Constitution Square in Kharkiv, demanding the authorities to review the activities of the Center for Animal Treatment in Kharkiv.

The Day has learned from Pro Life’s director Yana Renk there is ample evidence, actually, that the above-mentioned shelter not only performs euthanasia of animals, but worse still, does it without anesthesia, causing the four-legged creatures to die in agony. In addition, the activists remind the public that the Center for Animal Treatment is a trapping-without-return operation, meaning in practice that it in fact kills ownerless animals (more than 90 percent of those trapped), while the European Union countries practice the humane trap-neuter-return method (The Day’s Ukrainian edition covered this topic in “Breakthrough or Palliative?” article, No. 101, June 14, 2012). The activists also demanded the center’s manager to be fired, however, as Renk noted, they were not sure that manager Yulia Shapovalova would indeed have to leave office.

The activists plan to continue their campaign through legal action. Renk told us, in particular: “We have been advised to send a request to the prosecutor’s office for our organization and, should they desire so, representatives of other animal welfare advocacy movements to become part of committees reviewing municipal enterprises to control how they work and whether they use anesthesia. Thus, now we got to prepare this request. We need legal help to compile it correctly.”