after a couple of sluggish, embarrassing and ultimately failed attempts at using the cat traps leading up to the many festive distractions of december, woman completely forgets about her resolution to sterilise the community cats until today when in a fit of activity, she nabs 2 cats on the way back from late night shopping at mustafa. so leukemia is back. and a never before seen cat with a warped Escherisque tail, bent in 2 places to resemble a Penrose triangle.
the cats are quarantined in the toilet and that makes us one animal too many in our 7 residents, 7 squatters 2006 household census. and the woman is going on about how Escherisque tail is rare for a domestic short-hair, luxurious and soft to the touch. eh, don't get any funny ideas lady, one more resident and we are officially slumming.
i am in a mood today. letters to Town Council about potential animal abuse have come to naught. 2 times already, a certain politician comes back with standard replies on necessity of animal control and no feeding and allowing stray cats in our estates. excuse me, i am asking you what is being done about cleaners taking their own initiative to kill the cats by whatever means available to them. witnessed practices: poisoning of cats and bagging kittens alive and throwing them in the trash. he skirted the issue completely in his first reply, and only on further insistence does he say they will instruct cleaners accordingly.
that is an appalling lack of reading comprehension or respect. so estate beauty more important than value of life, is it? feedback on potential animal abuse case becomes another avenue for them to read residents their riot act.
this makes me more inflamed about their ridiculous stance on not allowing stray cats in our community, he says we need to take into consideration of others living in the community. HDB and Town Council have received many complaints on stray nuisance and we need to remove strays.
what about people who value the lives of strays animals and want to see them well taken care of? don't they have a voice in the community that also requires action from the authorities?
to be in keeping with the stray policy, it requires in most circumstances for people who care to consciously walk away from animals in destitute or distress. that's asking them to give up a part of who they are. Compassion and social conscience are not attributes that can be turned on for politically correct causes and off for unpopular ones. you want to promote volunteerism and philanthropy in Singapore, here's your citizens, auntie and uncle giving of own time and money everyday, others trapping and neutering, still others rehoming. but what the authorities are saying is sorry hoh, only for the causes we like, ok? no wonder so many disillusioned, complacent, indifferent people here.if you are as inflamed as i am, give a shout to your Town Councils today: set guidelines, not DEADlines.
8 comments:
oh my goodness. you have such beautiful cats!!!
Sigh. Compassion in Singapore is almost dead.
I'm very shocked to see that such things are going on in your estate. Perhaps you could write to the papers in hopes they publish the letter?
At the rate it is going, Singapore will never be able to reach First World status, for its lack of compassion and not being an open society. Singaporeans themselves, generally speaking, are close-minded when it comes to cats as they think that they are filthy creatures who carry a million and one diseases with them just cos they reside in the longkang, when in fact, it is US humans who sent them into exile.
Trust me, I had neighbours who played God and poisoned and bagged live-born kittens to death, just cos the mother cat gave birth to her kittens in that house (she didn't want to give birth to them in the drain). It was so depressing that I just wondered what happened to the sense of compassion in our society.
In the US, a neighbour witnessed this man who gave his cat leftovers and called the police. The man was subsequently given a prison punishment or something to that effect. That might have seemed a little far-fetched but will this happen in Singapore? Hahaha! Fat chance.
Nevertheless, I am very glad to find people like you around!
Hi
In Belgium we have a very active (sometimes overly active) animal protection group called GAIA. They offer their services to anyone who wants a stray cat program in their town or village. Don't groups like that exist in the US?
daily dog, we live in Singapore in South East Asia. we have a great org Cat Welfare Society that coordinates volunteers for stray cat program in our various housing estates. my area has few volunteers however. but we all do what we can.
mary, sometimes i think its almost like stock market, when people care, the stock value of life (for cats or orphans or anybody) goes up and crisis when nobody does. lets hope SG doesn't one day bankrupt its own humanity.
juz_A_ga|, i am drafting something to the press but frankly, many concerned people's letters have been published about cruelty, unfair culling, dumb HDB ruling to no avail. but every drop of effort counts, we just have to believe that for our own sanity.
anon, yep, situation looks somewhat bleak in SG. until some genius comes up with a plan for change, guess small fries like me just have to keep raising the issue to friends, to family, to neighbours, to govt, even if we risk sounding like a broken record.
I do admire Cws for their efforts, however their readoption have a huge issue, they tend to pass the cats on to starngers who simply take the poor animals there and then, and afterward they get thrown out once the family gets tired, mostly chinese families especially, and malay families tend to not sterilise the cats upon maturity( this is a proven fact) and let their cats run rampant all over the estate, especially hdbs. It wouldnt be an issue if the damnable humans would actually not raise their children to be horrified or scared of cats, complaining about them to the town councils at the sound of a meow nearby, do they really cause that much harm? No, what is there to hate about a cat? or dog even? Until someone in the government wakes up and stops the culling, this society will end in shambles, not that it isn't already. Too many things are taken for granted in singapore, people need to wake up before something happens im not a religious person but taking lives mindlessly is bound to have an adverse effect some time or another.
To the anonymous high up on the list, the country is preventing reaching first world status due to the fact they are avoiding first world duties thus why it remains at this status, has nothing to do with the website but this is something i'd like to point out before you get laughed at.
the anonymous of 1:26am - perhaps you could advise what CWS do with the cats then? if they don't pass the animals to "strangers" for adoption, then to WHO?? YOU? i don't understand your "logic" - if that is what it's called - whatsoever.
so, why don't you start a campaign to educate singaporeans instead of sitting infront of the computer and rant? that's typically singaporean attitude.
breann. You're a pot calling a kettle black in the truest sense. You show your pointless hypocrisy by sacarstically challenging anonymous 1;26 to get off his/her feet and do something concrete instead of ranting. But, you dumb fuck, aren't you ranting as well?
what anonymous 1:26 was pointing out that the system of interviewing adoption candidates was somehow flawed, or because of a lack of resources left aside.
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