Group Offers to Help City Develop an Effective, Humane Programme to Control Strays

For Immediate Release:
6 September 2007
Contact:
Teresa Chagrin 1-757-622-7382

Addis Ababa – Today, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) — the world’s largest animal rights
organisation, with more than 1.6 million members and supporters — sent an urgent letter to Addis Ababa Mayor Ato Berhanu Deressa urging him to cancel plans to poison tens of thousands of stray dogs in the city in advance of Ethiopia’s celebration of the Coptic millennium next week. In the letter, PETA points out that the plan — in response to a perceived rabies threat – is both cruel and dangerous, and the group offers to assist with the humane euthanasia of the city’s stray dogs.

Authorities intend to use as bait meat laced with strychnine, a powerful poison that causes intense pain
and severe convulsions — which sometimes last for hours — before causing death by asphyxiation. The
ill-conceived plan would also result in the unintentional and agonising deaths of countless other animals, including birds and mammals who might feed on the poisoned dog carcasses.

PETA is offering to help Addis Ababa establish a full-service animal shelter that includes a programme
of compassionate euthanasia by injections of sodium pentobarbital, which — according to the American
Veterinary Medical Association, the leading authority on the subject — is the most humane way to euthanise
animals. Animal population experts agree that laws mandating that all owned animals be sterilised to
prevent unwanted births — coupled with full-service animal sheltering programmes — are the most effective
ways to reduce stray animal populations and, therefore, reduce the threat of rabies.

“Ethiopia might be preparing to mark the third millennium, but this massive dog-poisoning plan is something right out of the Dark Ages”, says PETA President Ingrid E Newkirk. “We urge Mayor Deressa to call off this cruel massacre and accept our assistance to establish an effective dog-population and rabies-control programme that will benefit both the animals and the city’s residents.”

PETA’s letter to Addis Ababa Mayor Ato Berhanu Deressa is available upon request.
For more information, please visit PETA’s website HelpingAnimals.com