Money before welfare

The summer season is fast approaching, which spells a hike in the number of pets discarded by owners looking to a hassle-free holiday.

As statistics show, the number of homeless pets has grown by a quarter over the past decade. Meanwhile, state audit inspections reveal that the animal shelters’ objective to save lives is sidelined by a drive for profit.

“A lack of control by local governments over the way in which animals are treated both by dog-watchers and the animal shelters themselves in many cases results in disappearances of animals and strong suspicion that they are actually killed,” says Tomasz Pietrzykowski, professor of Law at the University of Silesia in the southern city of Katowice, and member of Poland’s first Academic Society of Animal Rights told reporter Alicja Baczyńska.

Yet while ample solutions are there for the taking to counter this trend, are Poland’s policymakers willing to listen?