GOVERNMENT PROPOSES POPULAR CHANGES TO ANIMAL WELFARE BILL 5199

[amber]

Dog Control - You live ın Kalkan and have lots of ideas for campaigns etc - come and help! I am fed up wıth this them and us attitude and I am sure everyone else is too.Lets try and work together,withın the law to improve the street animal management ın Kalkan.

Please PM me if you would like to do something and anyone else too.

[chickengeorge]

Yessss!!! most Turkish people and tourists will be very happy....

I think the KTLN poll and the thankyou counts of those who would like to consider alternatives would suggest otherwise. People who state that tourists won't come if the street animals are removed are deluded. Probably 99% of tourists would have no idea there is even a debate about street animals. I doubt the Governments step back from the proposals means it's all over. I'm sure they see the need that something needs to be done.

[Dog control]

Amber I appreciate your sincerity but your invitation to join with KAPSA is a bit like asking a Tory to volunteer for the Labour Party.

A number of us have fundamental differences with KAPSA.

We believe there are too many uncontrolled dogs on the streets of Kalkan. We support the vacination and neutering programme but believe this is grossly inadequate by itself.

We believe uncontrolled dogs are at best a nuisance and at worst dangerous. We believe KAPSA's response to dangerous dogs is too little, too late.

We believe that an indiscriminate and potentially ever expanding feeding programme aids the problem.

We want to encourage responsible dog ownership but not uncontrolled dogs roaming the streets, sometimes terrorising people.

We believe dangerous dogs should be removed from public areas and either kept under control by responsible owners or be put down. We do not support feeding them, often near someone else's home.

You ask us to join with KAPSA but this is exclusively on KAPSA's terms. KAPSA has made no offer to review its policies in response to our concerns.

Until such time, the answer is "No thanks!"

In the meantime I hope people will find a better place to put their efforts.

I will be supporting the fundraising dinner at Fenner tomorrow night to support a local 8 year old child with leukaemia - in my opinion a far more worthy cause.

[itstime]

Nothing to stop people supporting both causes as I and no doubt many many others have done. I am sorry to miss the function at Fenner but for anyone interested there are other ways to donate including via KTLN.
 Please, this is not about people v animals. It is entirely possible to support both

[kalkanview]

I agree with chickengeorge and infact the Turkish govt will be coming back with revised proposals so as they say it ain't over until the fat lady sings!

dogcontrol covers the main issues nice and concisely.  You have to say there are plenty of serious injustices in the world Syria just to mention one  and in the great spectrum of life the kalkan dogs are  hardly top of the list.  I remember that when the dogs were poisoned which was awful, there was lots of reaction some of it rather hysterical with "children crying", but when the old almond seller was knocked off his scooter by a dog ...........nothing.

So maybe some are losing perspective particularly with language such as "Death Camp" et al? 

The latest KTLN story on the very sad events with the Dalaman to Kalkan transfer caused by a single dog crossing the road further illustrates why stray dogs need controlling.  How can this situation be  allowed to continue any longer by the authority's? 

p.s. I would like to remind any reader of this post that Kalkan continues to be an absolute paradise - really!

[happy days]

Kalkanview. You started this thread and I think your last post is a fitting end, particularly the endorsement that Kalkan is paradise.

We have all had our say on this issue and now time to move on to other more deserving issues and what better than the one mentioned by Dog Control, the fundraiser for the daughter of the head chef in Fenner. If ever there was a worthy cause then this is it.

If you are not going tomorrow, then dig deep and donate some money via the link on KTLN.

[amber]

Dog Control I wasn’t inviting you to become a Kapsa member I was just suggesting that we all might benefit from a friendly exchange of ideas.

I was interested to read your list of

fundamental differences 

because it seems we are not so different after all! But it would appear that (and please don’t take this as an insult) you don’t know very much about Kapsa and our objectives. We have leaflets in quite a few businesses in the town perhaps you’d like to have a look.

We believe there are too many uncontrolled dogs on the streets of Kalkan. We support the vacination and neutering programme but believe this is grossly inadequate by itself.

Kapsa totally agrees with you on this which is why we have been putting pressure on the Mayor to provide a temporary shelter among other things. We have on many occasions petitioned the Belediye and even the Governor of Kaş to speak to the Muhtars from surrounding areas to insist that all village dogs be brought to us to be neutered and returned instead of them breeding freely the result of which is their offspring being dumped in Kalkan or elsewhere. We find homes for dogs where ever possible and this year we have 9 dogs going to new homes in the UK.

We believe uncontrolled dogs are at best a nuisance and at worst dangerous. We believe KAPSA's response to dangerous dogs is too little, too late. We believe dangerous dogs should be removed from public areas and either kept under control by responsible owners or be put down.

Here I would like to point out that we are all volunteers and it is not our ‘job’ to deal with dangerous dogs, it is in fact the responsibility of the belediye. But the reality of the situation is that we are the only people who do anything at all. We have removed a number of dogs that were considered dangerous or were unsuitable for life on the streets of Kalkan.

We believe that an indiscriminate and potentially ever expanding feeding programme aids the problem.

Here we do have to disagree. Our feeding programme is far from indiscriminate. It does stop the dogs flocking to the town in the winter when all the villas empty and the hotels close down. Also hungry dogs are more likely to be aggressive. It also helps us with neutering as people are able to identify unneutered animals easily. It is also supported by a great many Turkish people. Last winter we had 70 winter feeding volunteers of which more than two thirds were Turkish. We encourage our feeders and tourists (if they ask) to feed animals away from villas etc where cats or dogs may not be welcome by others.

We want to encourage responsible dog ownership but not uncontrolled dogs roaming the streets, sometimes terrorising people.

We have always tried to encourage responsible dog ownership. According to the current law ALL owned dogs should be registered with the belediye. This doesn’t happen. We keep a registry of all street dogs and have asked the Belediye to insist that all owners should register their dogs with us as the belediye has no interest in doing this themselves. Again, this hasn’t happened

You ask us to join with KAPSA but this is exclusively on KAPSA's terms. KAPSA has made no offer to review its policies in response to our concerns.

Kapsa doesn’t have terms we just try to act within the current laws

I hope this has helped to clear up some grey areas.

[Lantana]

Thank you to all the people in Kalkan, including Kapsa members, ( Sandra Osborne in particular - Amber) who gave so generously in terms of time and money to the fundraiser for Nisa Kirca.

I organised the event, with help from many people here. I am a Kapsa member.

We raised over 17,000 Turkish lira.

And finally Kalkanview, please read the posts on here before you accuse people of doing nothing. The 'old almond seller' who is called Kenan and is 57, was not knocked off his bike by a dog.  This fact has now been reported on here by me at least three times but some people still want to make up a story that fits their agenda when the facts don't.

And many Kapsa members, including me, responded to Kenans' hour of need.

In my experience of fundraising over many years in many countries, compassion and empathy, which prompts people to give to any number of good causes is rarely restricted to only one aspect of life. Thus animal lovers are just as likely as anybody else to support a whole variety of causes. To suggest that animal lovers put the welfare of animals above that of people or any other cause is simply offensive.

Lantana

[saskia]

I wasn't going to post on here again but I just couldn't help myself. That is just so wonderful. I am so pleased that on occassions like this everyone can pull together. Thanks Lantana et al, lets hope the money raised can go along way to making Nisa well again. Thank you to EVERYONE that supported this.

Lantana I think you should write about this on General Discussion (if you haven't already) as not everyone may read this thread. I have heard people say it was one of the best evenings they'd ever spent in Kalkan and all for a good cause.