THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, February 26, 1938. ANIMAL WELFARE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23436, 26 February 1938, Page 12

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, February 26, 1938. ANIMAL WELFARE

That the Otago Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals continues unostentatiously to discharge the valuable function in the community which represents the purpose of its existence has been sufficiently revealed in its annual report. The society’s operations are necessarily limited by its resources. It is dependent on public support, and at the annual meeting this week its president made an appeal for more subscribers. It is to be hoped that this may meet with an encouraging response. People, and there are many, whose feelings are outraged by the callousness too frequently shown towards animals in our midst, but feel impotent to attack it, cannot do better than lend their support to an organisation which exists for that humanitarian purposfe. The S.P.C.A. should have the esteem and gratitude of all lovers of animals, and it should be the desire of the latter to see its influence strengthened as much as possible. Financially the society is in need of good friends, and the hope expressed by Mr Downie Stewart that during the present year its financial problem may be aided by legacies brings under notice a direction in which the claims of such an organisation may very appropriately receive recognition. A few substantial benefactions from members of the community who are in a position to bestow them would place the society on a stronger footing and enlarge its influence. There is much that it might do which it is unable to consider at present if the resources were only at its disposal. As it is, but for the society’s admirable preventive work there would be little check on many

abuses. It is deplorable that in its annual report the society should have had to appeal for public assistance in supplying information such as may lead to the conviction of dog poisoners. Every rightthinking person must wish it success in its efforts to stamp out an utterly despicable practice. There is room for the cultivation of more humanity towards dumb creatures in ttys country, in which such diversions as the coursing of hares in enclosed spaces and the shooting of live pigeons released from traps still survive. At a recent meeting of the Wellington Society attention was drawn to the large number of cases of animals, particularly dogs, being hopelessly injured by motor traffic, and to the necessity for definite provision to permit of their sufferings being terminated quickly in the humanest possible manner. But for the gross callousness of the speeding motorist this problem would be by no means so apparent. In the cultivation of a strong feeling against any toleration of needless animal suffering New Zealand can learn a deal from Great Britain, where it finds representation in many societies. An Animal Welfare Week is held here, and the local S.P.C.A. considers it helpful in creating a love of animals and birds among children and the public generally. It could be wished that there was more evidence of public interest in this laudable movement. An appeal on behalf of animals is not unworthy of any educational institution. Eleven years ago the University of London Animal Welfare Society was established, its first declared aim being, “To lessen, by methods appropriate to its special character as a university organisation, the pain and fear inflicted upon animals by man.” The society in question has attacked the problems of animal suffering, .observes the Manchester Guardian, in fi balanced, methodical and scholarly way, and the influence of its reports is the greater in that humane principles are followed with much sense and no sentimentality. Last year a House of Lords committee issued a report on the damage done by rabbits, and the most important part of the society’s annual report was given to this question, in .pursuance of its aim of promoting a law in the future such as would end, once and for all, “ the main inducement to the barbarities of the trapping industry.” Recently new buildings of the Royal Veterinary College and Hospital, costing £300,000, of which the Government contributed half, were opened by His Majesty the King. The full scheme, it has been explained, provides for the erection of a large animal hospital in the future. The group of buildings includes a research institute in animal pathology, and free clinics for the treatment of animals of the poor, as well as a canine hospital and an animal husbandry department and research laboratories. We are more than a little behindhand in these matters in New Zealand.