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Why is it necessary to microchip animals?

There is one single question I get asked all the time by journalists and the one I have no answer to.

—How many stray animals are there in Turkey?


I doubt that anyone who is responsible for the matter within the Ministry or the mayors of municipalities have an answer to that question. They don’t actually even care.

How can you solve a problem of which you have no inventory? How are you supposed to raise funds? How can one calculate what the needed budget is and how many people one will need hire? How can you start fining people who abandon their animals out on the streets, while they are allowed to buy those animals without any registration? (since you cannot ask the animals who it was selling them) Also, how can you even know what the prior sicknesses and vaccinations an animal has had?

In order to solve the problem OF stray animals, you need to know how many there are out there, how many of them are sold legally in pet shops or how else are you supposed to register any uncontrolled breeding?  How can include the animals that have been imported illegally into the country and record their offsprings in your official registers? Do we have to find out which municipality abandoned its registered strays dogs into the borders of another municipality by finding out that the ear tags of dogs have been removed and their ears are torn apart? The current chaos that is taking place throughout the country is caused because of the fact that there is no official inventory system. For example, in Scandinavian countries, each and every tree is accounted for and they are all numbered. However in this country, the idea of solving this problem by having animals put to sleep, abandoning them in remote areas or reducing their numbers by mass murders is still prominent. The few small neuter or re-home efforts that do take place are all only palliatieve, they only save the day. However, if you have an idea of your inventory, you can then plan ahead and come up with programs and projects for the next 10 years.


In order to solve this problem, you need to have statistics, test results, x-rays etc. Otherwise you can make a misdiagnosis and send a cancer patient away with only a flu diagnosis and some aspirin back to his home. (this is in fact what has been happening for many years) Of course in this chaotic situation, many people will make a profit either by acting towards their egocentric need or for their monetary profit. This results in people showing up claiming their solution is the best, make a whole show out of it, to dismiss scientific findings, to persist in claiming that this is ‘only a flu’ without any test results and to dismiss a ‘cancer’ diagnosis, to create conspiracy theories in which one claims that all animals will be put to sleep. This is all because of their ignorance and greed. However, people (and even animals) have been waiting for a solution for years. Even though we might agree on a solution, we worry about WHO is proposing this solution and label these people or institutions and derogate them. The solution might be reasonable, but its rejection is people oriented.


So far I have never had any complaints in any of the studies I conducted. I do not write sad stories you might read in an advice column, I do not appear on tv with my tear jerk stories. Firstly I observe and make an analysis. I then try to engage the curiosity of others and make them sensitive to the issues by not including too many technical details and by always providing an alternative solution.
One of the main articles that I definitely want to see within the amendment of the law is this whole MICROCHIP phenomena and I will do my upmost best to have this pass through the parliament and allow the proposal which we have presented to them to be kept as it is. 22/4/2013

 

 

 

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