10/25/05 Sadism in the Name of Prevention!
Animal Friends continues to express their bitterness regarding the shameless way Croatia deals with the problem of bird flu and the way the taken measures are presented to the public
Instead of taking measures for containing bird flu amongst domestic poultry in a civilized way suitable to civilizational achievements of the 21st century, in the past few days mass slaughter of healthy animals took place, and new are announced, despite the bitterness of villagers whose poultry the policemen brutally killed in the manner of the wild west.
It is a shame for the veterinarian practice that the veterinarians kill animals by twisting their necks and thus breaking the Animal Welfare Act, although they are obliged to follow it by their practice ethics. Even greater hypocrisy is that these brutal killings are presented to the Croatian public as euthanasia, although euthanasia means "the painless mercy killing performed by special means."
It is unconceivable that, if euthanasia was to take place, the poultry was not previously stunned with cheap gaseous anesthetics like chloroform, that is known to all veterinarians.
Mass slaughter as a price for entering the European Union
New mass killings are already announced because swans with bird flu have been found in ponds near Nasice. This rises a question will the Croatian government, because of the adulation to the European Union, kill all poultry in Croatia every time there is a dead bird found.
It is unbelievable that, instead of putting domestic poultry into quarantine in time, regulating large money penalties for quarantine offenders and adequate control of hazardous areas, Croatia decided for completely unnecessary, crazy and unreasonable killing of animals and spreading panic in the public, not considering great damage for the people, entire country, and mostly for innocent animals.
Appeal for reason
We appeal to Croatia, if it wants to show her maturity as a state, to deal with this problem in the ways of ethic values of the 21st century and not to delouse the public, which is sensible to animal suffering, that these shameless killings are for the sake of people and animal well-being and that the killing of a vast number of chicken and other poultry will stop the spread of the bird flu virus.
We also appeal to Croatian public to express their disapproval of the repressive police measures toward population, putting human life in danger by shooting fowl and conformal decisions, which will have bas consequences for Croatia.
