After more than 1.5 year, NIK reinvestigated communal systems of homeless animals care. It checked if the amended Animal Protection Act improved the pets’ living conditions. Unfortunately, the communes still cannot provide proper care to homeless pets. They cannot prevent the animals’ homelessness effectively. Most communes limited themselves to single actions.
Polish animal shelters are overcrowded. In 2011, there were more than 100 thousand dogs in 150 shelters, although the number of places was three times smaller (about 34 thousand). At the same time, there were 20 thousand cats, which makes above four times more than places available (about 4 thousand). More and more pets are dropped every year. Since 2005 the number of them has gone up by 21 percent. Fortunately, the number of adopted pets is also growing. More than a half of them found a new home in 2011 (54.7 thousand animals).
The shelters cannot provide pets with decent living conditions. Dogs and cats lack proper rooms, beds or enclosures (71 percent of shelters), stay in poor sanitary conditions - coops and boxes contaminated with faeces (43 percent). The animals are often poorly fed (21 percent) and even exposed to injuries. Every fourth animal admitted to a shelter does not survive in such conditions. This is a sign that supervision exercised by the Veterinary Inspection over shelters and other places caring about animals at the commune’s order should be strengthened.
The audit shows that the communes usually adequately respond to the cases of tormenting animals. They do not manage, though, to keep reliable records of trapped cats and dogs. Only four audited communes attempted to mark the four-legged. Besides, NIK inspectors identified gaps and errors in the records in five audited shelters. This is considerable negligence since without full documentation it is impossible to investigate the fate of the pets that were placed in a shelter or given out for adoption. It is also more difficult to check if the money intended for animal protection was used properly.
The situation is particularly alarming in the context of NIK’s findings. More than one third of funds designated for the financing of animal care in the audited communes was spent illegally (to companies which did not have required animal trapping licences and did not provide places in the shelters) or uneconomically (not meeting the minimum animal care standards). In none of the audited communes’ agreements with the shelters and animal trapping companies were the fees established based on real costs. The reduction of expenses had an adverse impact on animals.
