Experts from the ministry of agriculture and animal welfare organizations have finished working on the changes to the new Regulation 41 by order of prime-minister Boyko Borisov. The regulation which is crucial to the way the Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return works is meant to make work easier to the smaller municipalities, by allowing them to build less-costly dog shelters.
The dogs will be placed into small outside enclosures with dog-houses to keep them from the environment. The so-called “concentration camps” – large fenced areas where all the animals will be gathered before being placed in shelters will not be built. The so-changed Regulation 41 is a compromise to us as animal welfare workers, but we do understand the need for a less-expensive in smaller municipalities and don’t want to compromise their work by setting the standard too high.
The re-writing of the recently passed new Regulation 41 was pressed through after last week 91 animal welfare organizations from all of the country sent their representatives to protest in front of the Council of Ministers. 3 representatives were received by the Prime Minister and at the meeting (where the Minister of Agriculture, The Mayor and deputy mayor of Sofia were present) he ordered that our experts be heard and taken into consideration when changing the animal-related legislation.
The working groups were formed on April 24 and 25. The following parties took part in the process:
- Ministry of Angriculture and Foods
- Bulgarian Agency for Food Safety
- Vier Pfoten Bulgaria
- Animal Rescue Sofia
- Committee For The Rescue of Stray Animals
- Citizen Control and Animal Protection
- For the Rights of Animals Foundation
- AFA-Bulgaria Foundation
The edited text of the regulation has been passed on to the minister along with a letter where animal welfare groups insist that no changes be made to the current Animal Protection Act as this version of Regulation 41 is fully in compliance with it.
We remain in waiting – will the corrected text of the regulation be passed on; will the Minister of Agriculture fulfill the Prime Minister’s order to support CNVR on a national level; will the Ministry continue to work with Animal welfare groups.
Meanwhile in Sofia the Municipal Council has yet again not voted for the acceptance of the new Program for control of stray dog overpopulation. The new Program has been ready for nearly a year, but is not being voted through. Meanwhile C ouncil representatives from the Health and Order committees continue to insist that the matter be “given to them for a quick solution” despite all laws and legislations.
We remind you that the current president of Romania – Mr.Basesku was elected after slaughtering all the dogs of Bucuresti as mayor of the Romanian capital. Needless to say there are even more free roaming dogs in the city today. We must do our best not to allow cheap populism to ruin the progress already made to solving the stray dog problem in Bulgaria.
