New Turkey Law Slowly Killing Stray Cats and Dogs

A new draft law presented to the Turkish Parliament, if passed, would condemn Turkey's stray cats and dogs to a slow and agonizing death.

The Government's plan is to abolish the current programme of TNR (Trap, Neuter and Return) and replace it with a policy instructing the municipalities to round up all free-roaming animals to place them in what are called  'Dogal hayat parklari' (natural life parks).

Now this may sound nice but these parks will just be fenced off areas, probably forests, far from populated areas where hundreds or even thousands of animals will have to fend for themselves. Those that don't die of starvation will probably suffer terrible injuries from fights over limited food sources and disease will spread through the population like wildfire.

At the moment many municipalities do not employ a vet to neuter or treat street animals, some cannot even support the animal shelters in their own areas properly so who is going to care for the animals in these out of the way parks? There will be no way to check on their welfare or even to find out if animals were actually taken there at all or disposed of in some other way!! These "parks" will become nothing but mass death camps!

Change has a petition to the Prime Minister of Turkey Tayyip Erdogan, "Stop Turkey’s proposed Death Camps for stray animals!".

Please sign the petition. They have now already collected more than 15,000 signature and need just over 9,000 to reach their target.