04/11/02 The Case of Dog Execution
Another case of dog execution done by hunters
A DOG KILLED IN FRONT OF THE EYES OF A CHILD IN SLAKOVCI
Animal Friends reacts once again to the killing of a dog due to the "300 meters law" - the article 54 of the Hunting Law. We are asking for the immediate ending of this completely unnecessary part of the Hunting Law which goes beyond any understanding.
A new case of a dog killed by hunters happened again in Medjimurje, near a place called Slakovci. Right after recent strong reaction at the killings of cats and dogs in Medjimurje, just when the world's campaign for abolishing the article 54 of the Hunting Law in Croatia had been started, another case puts a black mark on our country.
Croatian hunters are abusing the article 54 of the Hunting Law and are purposely killing dogs and cats spoted 300 m away from a settlement although the mentioned article regulates different types of removing animals such as catching ar banishing them and not necessarily killing them. The case in Slakovci just confirms this abuse, because the hunters didn't take the time to check if this dog was in the company of the boy or if it belongs to someone, nor have they tryed to banish it or catch it, they've just brutally killed it.
This is just one in the long line of animal killing cases done by hunters, and no 'honorable' and "ethical" hunter - the "safe keeper of nature and animals" can be found to stop this. Furthermore, the hunters' associations and alliances are often defending this killers of completely innocent animals. If cases like this are not considered to be against any hunters' ethics, the question is why does it exist and what is the nature of this ethic?
The hunter coldbloodedly and knowingly without checking or regret shot the dog whose owner was near by. The boy, dog's owner, was present at the time the hunter shot the dog, so it wasn't that the dog was abandoned or a menace to the hunting ground, even if the case was that the animal had been spotted without an owner, the hunter shouldn't have killed it before trying to catch or banish it.
We have already sent a letter to the Croatian Hunters' Association asking them to exclude the two responsible hunters from their home hunting association called "Sljuka" and from the Croatian Hunters' Association.
We are demanding the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to immediately withdraw the article 54 from the Hunting Law in order to stop hunters to kill dogs and get away with no punishment for this otherwise punishable act.
The whole world is astonished by the way the Croatian Government acts towards the protection of animals, and the hunters' lobby in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, as well as in the government, is defending the present standpoints and attracting the rage of the world's animal protection community. Although the public survey shows a great support of the Croatian public to the initiative to erase this article, made by our organization, no one from the responsible and supervising bodies is not reacting and it looks like they won't in the future.
And then we wonder why is that the civilized world thinks of us as barbarians...
