Petizione Enpa al premier australiano Scott Morrison.

Il Governo australiano ha condannato a morte due milioni di gatti inselvatichiti, accusati di “danneggiare” gli ecosistemi autoctoni. Saranno uccisi entro il 2020. Con il veleno, a fucilate, per mezzo di trappole. Le esche avvelenate - riferiscono alcune fonti - saranno lanciate addirittura dagli elicotteri. Le vittime di questo vero sterminio sono gatti che un tempo vivevano nelle case degli australiani, che un tempo venivano considerati a tutti gli effetti parte di un nucleo familiare. Prima cioè di essere messi alla porta, di essere abbandonati a loro stessi. La mancanza di interventi sistematici di sterilizzazione, di una strategia di recupero e di messa in sicurezza degli animali all’interno di santuari, di una strutturata politica di adozioni, hanno fatto il resto.
Massacrare i gatti inselvatichiti, così come qualsiasi altra specie animale, non è soltanto crudele. E’ inutile. Infatti, le uccisioni non rimuovono le cause che sono alla base di possibili squilibri demografici: ciò significa che un eventuale situazione di sovrannumero è inevitabilmente destinata a ripresentarsi nel prossimo futuro.
L’Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali, facendosi portavoce dell’indignazione di milioni di italiani, chiede al governo australiano di sospendere le esecuzioni di massa e di avviare finalmente di serio programma finalizzato al contenimento delle nascite, alla prevenzione del randagismo felino, al possesso consapevole degli animali.
Solo così sarà realmente possibile ottimizzare la convivenza con gli animali e portare a soluzione eventuali situazioni problematiche.

Your Excellency,
I’m writing you on behalf of the Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali, Italy’s most influential and renowed organisation dealing with animal protection issues. I am contacting you to express the deep concern of the vast majority of italian citizens regardingd the alleged plan of the Australian government to kill two million feral cats by 2020. As far as we know from International and Italian press sources, cats should be trapped, poisoned or shot to death because they are charged of endangering native Australian species.
We believe that this plan is cruel and inhumane, but we also think it will be uneffective. Science has proved that when there is a demographic imbalance within the population of a certain species, one ought to remove the factors that caused that imbalance. As expercience shows, killing other beings simply doesen’t solve the problem. In the short term, it may indeed affect the demographic structure of the species, but in the long period the population will likely start to grow again.
In the case of Australian feral cats, the problem of demographic imbalance seems to be related to the shameful habit of abandoning those that once were regarded as “best friends”, to the presence of homeless animals, to the reproductive capacity of stray specimens. None of these critical factors wil be affected by the government’s plan. As a result it is possible that within a few years Australia could be facing the same problem. Once again.
We are deeply concerned by the ethical implications of this policy, becasue no one has, nor should have, the power of life and death on another being. Especially when this power is exercised in order to solve a crisis created by its holder, man.
Though our countries are so far away, we feel there is a special connections between our people, as it is testified by thousands of italian citizens living in Australia. This is the reason why we feel so involved in the situation you are facing. In many Italian regions we dealt, and we still deal, with demographic imbalances in animal populations. Where we managed to solve the problem it was because we decided to follow a “cruelty free” strategy based on neutering, adoptions, responbile ownership of animals, hospitality of abandoned animals in no-kill shelters. Today we can proudly say that those territories that enforced these policies have solved any criticality related to the presence of stray animals.
We believe that this cruelty free strategy can prove its effectiveness also in Australia. We would all be grateful to your government if it gave a chance to those 2 million feral cats “sentenced to death” and we are ready to give any kind or form of support you might request.

Yours sincerely
Carla Rocchi
President of Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali