”People make a lot of money on homeless animals in Poland” - says Dorota Sumińska, a vet and publicist. Local governments pay private companies to care about stray cats and dogs. As NIK put it in its last year’s report, half of the audited municipalities did not check at all what happened with the animals delivered to the shelter. That ”care” system led to different pathologies.
Local governments were interested mainly in catching stray cats and dogs. They spent on it 80 percent of all money earmarked for animal care. As a consequence, over 60 percent of audited municipalities hired companies to catch cats and dogs without making sure there is enough place in shelters for them, because they did not have money for that. That approach paved the way to kill animals or make them live in the places where they had no chance to survive.
NIK’s report contained a few proposals to change the law:
- the act should provide for an obligation to register and microchip dogs so as to follow the fate of caught animals;
- consent to run a shelter should be given only after positive evaluation of the veterinary inspectorate;
- municipalities should refine the following agreements:
- agreements with dog catchers should define shelters where caught animals should go;
- agreements with shelters should provide for specific requirements as to care about caught animals;
- municipalities should have the opportunity to audit shelters;
- municipal programmes for homeless animals should be established in the local law. That would give them legal power and enable evaluation of the local authorities in terms of law execution);
- the act should provide for an obligation to care about homeless animals, rather than to protect against them as it has been to date.
Catching animals should only be the first stage in the process of providing them with care. Afterwards a homeless animal should be placed in a standard-compliant shelter and then adopted.
NIK’s proposals are now waiting to be used by the law-maker.
