Animal welfare in dire straits

TEL AVIV - Local animal welfare organizations are on the brink of financial collapse due to insufficient government and municipal funding and a lack of regulations regarding neutering. Many of the 30 animal welfare organizations may be forced to terminate their operations in the near future unless they receive immediate monetary aid, animal rights activists say. Etti Altman, founder and spokeswoman of Let Animals Live, says the non-profit organization is in a dismal situation, and the organization may be forced to shut down its activities if she does not find a way to raise money. 'We have nowhere to go' “All the animal welfare organizations are on the brink of collapse,” she says. “We do the Lord’s work, but we simply do not have enough money.” She said the agencies’ work, including taking in stray dogs and cats, operating on wounded animals, spaying and neutering costs tens of thousands of shekels monthly. Altman says the funds her organization receives from government and municipal agencies are not nearly enough, as the organization’s monthly expenses reach some NIS 250,00 ($56,800). She said the shelter’s landlord charges NIS 20,000 (about $4,545) rent a month, and the government gives NIS 70,000 (about $15,910) a year. “It is not willing to give us our own piece of land to build a shelter on,” she says. “Our lease expires in six months we have nowhere to go.” Altman says donations are not enough to sustain the organization’s operation, and some organizations may have to destroy some of the animals they are currently holding. “I won’t kill my animals,” she says. “I’ll take them to the prime minister’s office and leave them there let him take care of them.” In the decision-makers' hands The Environment Ministry, which is in charge of allocating funds to the animal welfare organizations, says it also operates on a low budget, and, therefore, does not possess the capabilities to amply support the animal organizations. Zahi Dotan, chief of the ministry’s animal department, says the sum the ministry allocated to animal organizations in 2004, about NIS 1.2 million ($273,000) is insufficient. “The ministry’s budget is very small,” he says. “We set up a fund that was supposed to be sustained by money from fines given to people who carry out animal-related offenses we are trying to increase enforcement, and thus increase the money collected in the fund for the animal welfare organizations.” According to Agriculture Ministry data, some 4,000-5,000 dogs are put to sleep each month, and Dotan says the number would be higher if not for animal welfare organizations. “These organizations perform the job that the municipalities are supposed to do,” he says. “They are great people who are taken for granted eventually, they will collapse.” Environment Ministry not committed enough Dotan says the ministry’s budget is low due to the priorities set by decision-makers who place security and social-related issues over animal welfare. “If the decision-maker is not an animal lover, you’ll get a response along the lines of, ‘Don’t you read the papers? Don’t you know the country is full of people who are poor and hungry?’” he says. “These issues should not cancel off one another if our budget would increase from NIS 1.2 million (about $273,000) to NIS 2 or 3 million ($450,000 or 682,000), the country would not fall apart.” Knesset Member Yossi Sarid (Yahad), environment minister from 1993-1996, says there is enough money to address every important issue, including animal welfare, but the problem also lies within the ministry itself. “When I was minister of the environment I increased the ministry’s budget 10-fold,” he says. “Since then, I don’t believe the ministry heads have had a special commitment to animal welfare, and when there is no commitment, the situation does not improve.”

Animal welfare in dire straits

Thousands of dogs may be thrown out of shelters; organizations say government is not doing enough