Currently, it happens almost every time there are Olympic Games – except notably for the London Olympics. It is happening again in preparation for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, which are about the start. The Russians have spent $50 bn on this. The most expensive games ever by far and a lot of it has gone in corruption. That is bad enough because it affects the lives of Russian people (the money could be spent more wisely and humanely) but now we have the usual pre-Olympic clean up. It’s not litter or rubbish or building rubble, its cats and dogs.
In some countries awarded the accolade of hosting the Olympics, just before the Games start, officials go around the entire area and kill stray cats and dogs. They don’t trap them and treat them decently. They just kill ’em anyway they can. The more efficient the killing technique the better.
“Homeless dogs in Sochi face being killed with poison or traps, just to ‘clean up’ the city before the Winter Olympics. Disgusting! Shame on the government for their deplorable actions – especially after promising that part of the Olympic budget would be used to provide shelter for these neglected animals.” (Teneil Zerbst on Facebook)
There is a petition out at the moment on causes.com. It is for dogs but you can bet your bottom rouble (ruble – (RUB)) that anything stray and living that moves and is in the vicinity of the bloody Olympic complex will be brutally dealt with: eliminated. Apparently the Russian company cleaning up describe stray dogs as “biological trash”. Sorry guys, personally, I’d use that terminology to describe you.
It is more important for Russia and China to present streets cleaned of stray cats and dogs than to behave decently towards them.
I don’t want to blow the trumpet of UK attitudes to animal welfare but no stray dogs and cats were killed for the London Olympics, as far as I am aware. Quite the opposite: the developers allowed the Celia Hammond cat charity to remove all the feral cats from the Olympic site before it was bulldozed and rebuilt. That is what I call a humane approach to animal welfare.
The price of the bloated Olympic Games is too high, both in terms of cash and lives. It is ridiculous that animals should be slaughtered so brutally for cosmetic reasons (to make the place look better). It presents a false image of Russia. It is all about presentation.
The Russians should have a decent policy to prevent the creation of stray cats and dogs and the machinery (facilities) to carry out the policy. They apparently don’t. They prefer to poison animal en masse as and when required. Shame on you.
I’d far rather watch animals than Olympic games, billions of pounds squandered and animal lives obliterated for sport, disgusting.