Animal Cruelty in Malaysia : Is There Anyone to Stop This?

As I was driving to work a couple days back, I was listening to one of my two morning favourite radio station and surprisingly, both decided to talk about something I would say would make me feel a pinch a little bit in the bottom of my stomach.

[Kitty Heaven or Hell?]

Recently we have seen the recent animal abuse case that happened to what was supposed to be a "reputable animal hotel and sanctuary" for the public in Klang Valley. Over the Hari Raya holidays, they decided to put up an extremely affordable offer to lodge and care for the cats while they are away for holidays and naturally, the response for the public was really good and many left their cats in care of these people.

What happened after that was the sad story. Please be warned that the pictures might be a little disturbing, especially to cat owners.

For a week, more than 300 cats were locked up in cages, starved to death or near death, uncared for, completelt covered in their own feces and urine and in a abysmal condition with no escape and no way out to save themselves. After complaints came from their owners and the general public alike, raids were conducted to save the kitties and unfortunately not all made it out alive.

Knowing this, we have seen far too many times incidents such as this happening in our country and at this moment of time, I personally would question if there are anything that is done in respect to similar cases as to this one in the past? We as Malaysians have pride ourselves with the compasion that we give to others yet something is terribly wrong with the way that issues such as this is conducted in many occassions in the past.

Previously, even I wrote out, in a rather scathing update, against the Serdang Kitten Killer and since then, we have yet to see any real action that is taken against her apart from a slap in the wrist, a scripted press conference and a fine of merely RM400 for killing innocent cats in the alleyway. We have also seen cases of Sushi the dog, which was abuse and videos of the action being posted online on YouTube yet no actions were taken despite large scores of protests coming from the public.

Are these complaints falling on deaf ears or we just simply don't care? I would have to admit that we have the tendency to only follow up on issues such as this "while the news is still hot" but forget and move on once everything simmers down (the hangat hangat tahi ayam syndrome) and it is because of this, we have now have been seen complacent on the welfare of pets in this country.

[Scumbags of Petknode]

So, for how many more? How many times are we going to only try to act AFTER an incident like this has happened again? Fact of the matter is that we have seen remorseful faces potrayed in the picture above showcased so many times and it has become enough for them to wiggle their way out of trouble by simply laying low until the dust settles on the issue.

There are those out there, groups that were establish to highlight issues like this to the public that are at least making an effort to try and change this situation (PAWS which I am a frequent visitor of and MDDB who have been very active against crimes like this) but they are fighting a very lonely war. With no support or even consistency in the public's mindset against these people, we will be looking at more and more incidents that will turn our stomachs at the ghastly things that people can do against animals.

[Photo courtesy of resident TeamTehTarik photographer, SafrizPhotography]

I am a proud owner of two Persian cats and it would  be the death of me if they would ever end up in a situation like those cats. For those of you who knows me, I love this country to bits and the last thing I would want to do is undermine the workings of this coutry in comparison to how it is done in the Western world but on this case, I have no choice. In anywhere around the world, nothing less than harsh punishment (really hefty fines and actual jail time) are demanded by the public against animal offenders in their country, which quite honestly must be done the same with those that does the same here. Enough with this sympathy warnings against these criminals, they never did show the same compasion to these animals.

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