MAY 29

MAY 29, 2003
Do the right thing

Regarding health problems caused by stray animals, Dr Teo Ho Pin, one of the leaders of the Holland-Bukit Panjang GRC's fight against Sars, hit the nail on the head with his comment: 'Animal lovers should go out and adopt strays, take them home, care for them and organise a programme to take them in as pets.'

Those feeding stray cats in the streets should heed his words. A woman in a white BMW cruises round my neighbourhood almost every night, leaving offal for hordes of strays.

Every evening, an elderly man walks through the commercial district where I work, dropping off hawkers' leftovers for the cats that have learnt to wait for his arrival.

When accosted, they became indignant, claiming that they clear up after the cats have finished. The fact is, they don't do what is an impossible job. When cats come in numbers, food is scattered as they squabble. They run off with choice pieces to prevent them from being snatched by others. It is impossible to retrieve much of the resulting mess, either because the food had been taken by the cats to inaccessible places, or had been smeared by pedestrians all over the sidewalks, leaving a slimy stink that attracts rats and flies.

I love animals, and have a number of pets at home, among them three adopted stray cats. Another adopted stray resides in the stand-alone commercial building where I work. My colleagues and I pay for his food and veterinary bills. And we feed him well within our premises.

So, at this time when public hygiene is of utmost importance, I see no reason why self-righteous sentimentalists who persist in irresponsibly leaving cat food in public places should not be prosecuted for the litterbugs that they really are.

LEE CHIU SAN

WIN-WIN SOLUTION FOR ALL: The intensified effort to remove strays highlights areas where government and civil-society interaction needs to be improved.

The sudden disappearance of the animals has caused a lot of anxiety to volunteers who have made the effort to look after them responsibly. This includes ensuring animals under their care are sterilised and fed properly. Many of the volunteers have devoted time, energy and money to ensure that the strays are healthy and do not pose a threat or become a nuisance to the people and environment. In addition, there are programmes in place where some form of registration is carried out so that strays can be traced to their care-givers.

The removal of strays would have been an excellent opportunity to work with these volunteers and animal-welfare groups to devise a constructive way to manage the situation. However, from the feedback received from the animal-welfare groups, it seems that little or no information was given when the authorities were approached.

I recall the Singapore 21 exercise that was held five years ago. One of the issues raised was whether the Government could strike a balance between building consensus and taking decisive and quick action when necessary.

Could more time have been given so as to forge a government and people partnership to manage the situation? Could the transparent approach adopted in dealing with the Sars situation be adopted towards the strays issue?

A win-win solution for the Government, civil society and the animals can be found. Let us take time to work it out.

CHANG LI LIN (MS)

'Yes' to culling stray cats but no overkill, please

WE SHOULD take note of some of the concerns raised by Ms Jane Lee in her letter, 'Culling cats will lead to rat problem' (ST, May 26).

Rats, as we know, are vectors of many diseases. They transmit diseases like leptospirosis, the plague, viral haemorrhagic fever, the Marburg virus and Lassa fever.

Unfortunately, these diseases are not something from the past. As recently as 1994, there was an outbreak of the plague in Maharashtra and, in the 1990s, there were many outbreaks of haemorrhagic fever around the world, hitting even well-developed countries.

When the rat population is allowed to go up, the reservoir for the germs that cause these diseases will invariably increase. We must, therefore, try our best to keep down the rat population and also not unwittingly increase it.

According to Professor Anthony Barnett, Emeritus Professor in Zoology at the Australian National University, 'the hordes of rats in human communities are an outcome of human action: we grow and store great concentrations of food; we construct shelter and buildings and drains and at the edges of fields; and we often kill the carnivorous species which prey on small mammals'.

There is no doubt, therefore, that the rat population will go up if cats are culled too aggressively.

Pest-control companies may be able to kill the rats. However, not only are their services expensive, but they will also not be able to eliminate the problem because the surviving rats will be able to breed so rapidly that such efforts would be an exercise in futility.

There is also the danger that a large rat population may attract other predators. For example, because of its rats, New York City is reputed to have alligators in its sewers.

Rats are covert creatures, which makes them more dangerous vectors of diseases. Infectious diseases and rats make a potent combination.

It is always good to keep in mind what philosopher Albert Camus wrote: 'The plague bacillus never dies or vanishes entirely, that it can remain dormant for dozens of years in furniture or clothing, that it waits patiently in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs and old papers, and perhaps the day will come when, for the instruction and misfortune of mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some well-contented city.'

By all means, keep our stray-cat population down but we should not overkill and allow the rats to flourish.

DR WONG WEE NAM

ACCORDING to the Oxford dictionary, 'culling' refers to 'reducing the population of (a wild animal) by selective slaughter; sending (an unwanted farm animal) to be slaughtered'.

Does this mean that the Government is killing the strays selectively and, if so, what criteria are being used to select the cats for killing?

GOH KHENG-LIM (DR)