We've nothing to eat ourselves! Russians begin to kick their pets on the street

- The flows of help, volunteers and potential owners have been decreased, but on the streets there we see much more pets now. You need to ask people why this happens. Most likely they are afraid that they won’t be able to keep a pet and someone believed that the animals are carriers of the coronavirus, Anna Vaiman, a representative of the Zoozashchita charity foundation, told Interfax.

She noted that over the past week the number of posts about abandoned cats and dogs in social networks has increased.

“This is not a loss, they are definitely abandoned, because, firstly, no one responds to announcements, and secondly, there can’t be such that suddenly domestic thoroughbred cats started appearing on the streets,” explained Wyman.

There are no vacant places in shelters, which means that they are not ready to accept new guests. In the short-term detention center for captured animals in Yekaterinburg, they said that citizens were in no hurry to get a pet.

“Not a single dog has been attached to quarantine all the time.” I think that people simply don’t have money for their food, and not just for animals, ”said a representative of the organization.

Moreover, under normal conditions, during the period during which the quarantine is currently ongoing, usually one or two dogs were taken.

Yesterday, April 6, the State Duma Committee on Ecology and Environmental Protection asked Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to allow volunteers to visit shelters for street animals in order to prevent their mass death, RIA Novosti writes .

The head of the committee, Vladimir Burmatov, spoke about the numerous appeals received from citizens concerned about the situation regarding the refusal of volunteers to access the territory of the shelters. Visiting shelters is not included in the list of movements allowed during the period of self-isolation, and therefore volunteers can no longer feed abandoned dogs and cats, treat them and take care of them.

- Moreover, according to the World Health Organization and domestic veterinary institutions, coronavirus infection is not transmitted from dogs and cats, including street children, to humans. Volunteer assistance is the basis for the existence of shelters for street animals, the creation of obstacles to its normal implementation can lead to mass death of animals from starvation and the lack of timely veterinary care, as well as an additional deterioration of the sanitary and epidemiological situation. Volunteering in the field of animal handling is as important today as volunteer movements in other areas, the document says.

Note that while Russians in difficult times get rid of pets by throwing them outside, in other countries they act exactly the opposite. For example, in one of the states of Australia, against the background of quarantine, the number of transfers of animals from shelters to citizens increased by 300%, Izvestia writes .

Although in Europe, shelters slowed down their activity against the backdrop of the spread of coronavirus infection. However, the British did not forget about the smaller brothers - they offer shelters to take animals temporarily or for constant education.