Public Pressure Triumphs for Red Sea Poisoning Campaign

For animal owners in the Red Sea, the campaigns of poison that are waged throughout the year are one of your biggest fears. Many dog owners will neglect taking their dogs out at all for fear of them ingesting poison. Recently the bait has been covered with powdered strychnine, rendering it far more deadly. An animal need only sniff at the poisoned bait, and death can occur in a matter of minutes. Our vet here was completely baffled, he'd never seen anything like it before.

In the beginning of the month rumours surfaced that the government in the Red Sea was planning a mass-poisoning campaign to begin around the 15th of November. It didn't take long for the Facebook Animal Activists parade to begin. FB pages were flooded with requests to email the relevant authorities in Hurghada. The scope went far wider than just the ex-pats living here. Tourists were threatening to boycott the city due to the gross animal cruelty that the government was planning to enact. Thousands of emails from around the world flooded the inboxes of officials in Hurghada, some tothe point that the email inboxes were bouncing the messages back due to a lack of space!

I was one of those many emails, and was absolutely delighted to receive this notification in my inbox today, sent from the gateredsea@yahoo.com.

Complaints sent to the E-Portal stopped Stray dogs poisoning campaign in Hurghada

In a response to the many complaints sent to the Electronic Portal of Red Sea Governorate by a lot of tourists and foreign inhabitants of different nationalities, who threatened not to come to Hurghada again, in addition to the frequent requests of Humane and animal protection societies,  the portal put the whole matter to the Governor and the Secretary General of Red Sea who made the following decisions:

1. The  campaign of stray dogs elimination should be stopped all around the Governorate.
2. The manager of Veterinary Medicine Directorate in Red Sea is to prepare a study about the application of stray animals neutering Program.
3. Veterinary Medicine Directorate in Red Sea is to cooperate with the volunteer civil societies to implement this program.

So to everyone who sent an email, I thank you and applaud you. Together guys, we may have just done it and succeeded the government here that poisoning campaigns are NOT the way forward. From what I've read, HEPCA will coordinate with Blue Moon Animal Shelter and the local government vets to re-start the TNR programme that was suspended a few months ago. 

WELL DONE!!! :D