Turkey’s
No Treat for Street Animals
Society Fights for Animal Rights
By
Robin Roth
(Izmir, Turkey) If ignorance is bliss, then enlightenment must be
misery. But when Dr. Burcu Ayadar saw a horse hit by a passing
motorist, her life changed for the better. Within minutes, her
once-peaceful morning in the Turkish city of Izmir turned into a
grueling week of veterinary visits, rejection and a lifetime of animal
aid.
The horse, now named Hope, had a broken leg as a result of the
collision, but vets wouldn’t treat her. Instead, managers at a nearby
zoo wanted to feed Hope and three other horses to the lions, a common
fate for homeless horses wandering the ancient roads of Izmir.
“I couldn’t let them die,” Ayadar says. An artist with advanced
degrees—including a Ph.D. in design—Ayadar not only found homes in
local villages for the four horses destined to be dinner, but also
began working full time for Turkey’s street animals, putting her
entire savings into animal activism and care. “After that I decided
to dedicate my life to the animals that need my help,” she says.
Her conversion was complete with the formation of the newly founded
Stray Animal Save and Alive Society, where Ayadar’s unflagging
crusade for the four-legged, furry and forlorn takes her all around
Izmir and surrounding cities of the Aegean. Rife with ruins—and
boasting more classical visages than Greece—Turkey is close to Greece
both in proximity and attitudes. The Greek lag notoriously far behind
their European Union counterparts concerning animal welfare issues, and
Turkey is not much better.
“We haven’t done anything for strays since the Ottoman Empire,”
Ayadar admits, although if she has her way, Turkey’s humane
organizations won’t be far behind wealthier, more developed nations.
As the president of SASAS, Ayadar aims to further the organization’s
widespread spay/neuter project, along with food and veterinary care for
Turkey’s countless stray animals. Without a van or a mobile
ambulance, Ayadar transports the animals in her own car to local
clinics, where dozens of dogs and cats are spayed and neutered each
week. In addition, the animals receive rabies vaccines, antibiotics (if
needed) and a couple of days of care before being released back to the
street. Only sick, injured or aggressive dogs and cats are kept at
SASAS’ current makeshift shelter.
Animal shelters aren’t altogether a foreign concept in Turkish
society—several exist in major cities such as Istanbul, Ankara,
Antalya and Izmir—but municipal concern for city strays traditionally
doesn’t extend beyond their requisite roundup and subsequent death.
Similar to the situation in Greece, Turkey’s homeless animals are
routinely poisoned in an effort to control their numbers. Built on
brutality and ignorance, this cruel system of animal control has
continued for years, but because of Ayadar’s influence local
officials have undergone a change of heart: Not only did the police
chief of Ankara donate bricks and wire to build a new shelter, but the
mayor of Urla provided Ayadar with 6.5 acres of shelter land after an
activist placed the lifeless body of a poisoned street dog on his
dinner table.
“He was shocked,” Ayadar relates. “The day after he called me and
invited me to a meeting. I told him poisoning wouldn’t solve the
problem of strays in the world because if you kill one dog another one
will take its place. But if you castrate the dog there won’t be
another dog. In that way you can easily follow [the animals’] numbers
and keep them under control.” In addition, she continues,
castration—not poison—is the most cost-effective means of animal
birth control. “He understood what I meant. I think he was very sad
about the fate of that dog. We shook hands and promised each other to
work in peace for that project.”
But not all endings are so happy.
According
to Ayadar, hunger, disease and death are prevalent problems for the
street animals SASAS seeks to save. In the organization’s current
shelter in Ornekkoy, more than 300 dogs struggle for protection from
the cold and rain in limited makeshift wooden sheds and open oil drums.
Even with carpets inside, and recently acquired electric heaters,
puppies still freeze to death during winter weather. Concrete shelters
are desperately needed, along with a more permanent home for aggressive
and handicapped dogs. And while plans are under way to begin
construction of a new animal shelter in Urla—complete with
administration area, surgery room, fenced landscape and individual
kennels for 500 hard-to-place dogs—construction can’t be completed
without proper funding.
Worldwide economic downturns have resulted in decreased donations, and
individual contributions are not enough to pay for vaccines and vittles
for hundreds of street animals castrated and cared for each week by an
organization whose main goal is castration and release. While city
officials bring buckets of leftover food from the air force daily,
major pet food companies have yet to sponsor SASAS.
And while Ayadar worries about the animals’ welfare, she also fears
for the volunteers—almost all women—who work round the clock caring
for shelter animals, along with catching, castrating and releasing
stray dogs and cats. The shelter must hire a night guard, as armed
intruders have stormed the sanctuary, and female volunteers have
reported being stalked by mysterious men. In a country where women are
traditionally subservient to husbands and sons, animal rights has
becomes an extension of a latent feminism. “We feed them instead of
ourselves,” Ayadar says of the animals. “Some of us used to lie to
our husbands to pay for their medication.”
Social change is significant since SASAS started, and Ayadar reports
that attitudes toward animals have changed. Veterinarians, for example,
are sympathetic to the cause of Turkey’s cast off street animals and
are willing to volunteer their services. More importantly, Turkish
society is beginning to have more of an understanding of animal rights.
Recognizing that more widespread social change must come with
education, which would be an important milestone in solving the chronic
crisis of animal suffering in Turkey, SASAS implemented a teaching
program with humane educators working in the elementary schools of
Izmir.
“People have a general idea about strays now, and have started to
adopt dogs and cats from animal shelters,” Ayadar says. While many
people keep expensive purebred dogs and cats as pets, more are
beginning to understand the meaning of responsible animal care. “We
are always telling them that you don’t have to pay a lot of money to
have a friend. Come and see their eyes—you won’t see the difference
from a more expensive dog.”
With
so many animals and so few homes (Ayadar, along with her family and
friends, has adopted dozens of dogs and cats), what the organization
really needs is strong international support. As Turkey strives for
greater acceptance from the European Union, Ayadar believes her country
must work for both human—and animal—rights. In an economically
challenged and unstable country, building an animal rights and
protection movement is no easy task.
Animal rights in Turkey must change, SASAS supporters say. And while
the spay/neuter project currently solves the problem of thousands of
street animals, a far more challenging goal is to make a sustainable
and permanent difference for animal rights in Turkey.
“Our animals are very desperate,” Ayadar says. “But no matter
what country someone lives in, all who love and help animals are close
to each other.”
This holistic philosophy guides all SASAS interaction. Ayadar endlessly
queries journalists and animal rights organizations around the globe
for monetary and veterinary support. While volunteers arrive with
veterinary supplies and fund-raising expertise, SASAS affiliates—such
as Eva Kulec, SASAS’ Austrian president—grow across the globe, but
the situation for the animals still sometimes seems insurmountable.
Despite the heartbreak and hardship of a relatively thankless job,
Ayadar has no regrets. She raises much-needed funds from friends, and
sells beads and ceramics to raise more. Ayadar is also using up her
savings and is selling family jewels to obtain money, according to one
source. And while some may call a career catering to cast-off critters
crazy, Ayadar exists on another level, where financial rewards aren’t
one’s motivation in life, unless less fortunate beings can benefit.
She’s happier than she’s been in years, she says, although she
works harder than ever in a seemingly never-ending fight for Turkey’s
street animals.
“Maybe I am not earning money now,” Ayadar admits, “but I’m
very happy to be free.”
SASAS (STRAY ANIMALS SAVE
AND ALIVE SOCIETY)
2011 Sok.No:8/5 Bostanli 35540 Karsiyaka, Izmir, Turkey
Phone and Fax:0-232-3367763
0-532-4162777
SASAS Austria
www.tierhilfe-gst.at
E-mail: animalsave@isnet.net.tr
EVA KULEC: tierhilfe-gst@aon.at
Phone: area code (232)-3367763
Cell phone:0-532-4162777
Donations to SASAS can be deposited directly at:
T.C. ZIRAAT BANKASI
Deniz Bostanli Subesi Bostanli Karsiyaka -IZMIR -TURKEY
account:
0934 0059 7379 0000 009
OZLUK NO: 4141