Group Decides To Withdraw Activities In Romania Following The Bucharest City Hall's Failure To Respond To Organization's Offer Of Assistance On Strays

They Instead Want To Simply Resort To Mass Killing Of Stray Dogs.

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Animal rights group withdraws assistance offer

http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=25154

Alecs Iancu

The animal rights group Naturewatch has decided to withdraw its activities in Romania following the Bucharest City Hall's failure to respond to the organization's offer of assistance on stray animal programs.
According to a press release form the organization yesterday, Naturewatch offered General Mayor Adrian Videanu the services of an independent, international expert on stray animal control programs following the death of a Japanese citizen after he was attacked by a stray dog on January 31.
"It was immediately clear that the Bucharest authorities went into panic mode as they were proposing ludicrous action such as shipping in hundreds of veterinary students to conduct neutering on stray animals (only qualified vets are allowed to operate on animals)," said Naturewatch director John Ruane.
For the sake of both the strays and the citizens of Bucharest, Naturewatch offered to fund the costs of an independent expert who was prepared to carry out an onsite, comprehensive assessment and present a package of workable solutions to the authorities, the release shows.
The group first sent a letter on the issue to the City Hall on February 3, followed by a second letter on February 17 and a third and final one sent on March 21.
"Despite having an office and employees in Bucharest, no response was forthcoming from City Hall, not even an acknowledgement. As a direct result of this completely unacceptable state of affairs we have decided to withdraw our activities completely from Romania," Ruane said.