A couple of weeks back, the news of the abandoned dogs in Pulau Ketam caused quite a stir when pictures of strays were left to fend for themselves in an uninhabited island surfaced in all the major newspapers.
The news that came about then turned ugly as animal lovers started complaining about the mistreatment of the poor mutts. The news became so bad that it attracted international media and in time, the foreigners started to say that Malaysia should be boycotted for their inhuman treatments of the dogs. And foreigners, being dog lovers, I wouldn’t blame them for that statement.
When that news came about, I held back my thoughts because everyone seemed to have a say in the matter. Some were good, some were bad, some had mixed feelings about the matter…etc… whatever.
Just a few minutes ago, I watched this documentary on Galeri Perdana Mandarin on TV2, where they went to find out what caused the whole problem of having the international community hate Pulau Ketam, a popular tourist destination & their residents due to the problem of the marooned dogs.
The crew interviewed whoever they could get; the village head/ representative, teachers, store owners, the common folk…etc… to get a view of the situation.
The general understanding of the entire documentary was this :
The previous village head knew about the problems of the stray dogs but did not do anything about it. From there, the dogs multiplied as they naturally would. When that happened, they strays started to do a number of things; going through garbage to get to food, biting on shoes and slippers of the inhabitants, chasing kids in the wee hours when they were walking to school, and the ultimate problem? Some of the school children got bitten, pictures of their wounds were taken and that’s when the whole thing came undone.
“Our children would usually walk to school in the dark, there are no street lights in most areas and that’s when the dogs come out and give chase,” a store owner said heatedly. “It’s usually so early in the morning that it happens, how do you expect the parents to wake so early to walk with them to fend off the strays? Now I see children holding wooden sticks given to them by their parents when walking for fear of an attack by the dogs.”
Thing is, the parents said they equipped their kids with wooden sticks or clubs. But they never gave specifics as to when they were given their weapons – before or after the biting incident. But I shall leave that aside as food for thought. The whole arguement seemed questionable, but that’s just me.
The villagers wrote to the police and Majlis Pulau Ketam (MPK), or the Pulau Ketam Cityhall for help and MPK came with the solution to put the dogs to sleep. The authorities were at one time rounding up about 150 dogs in 2 days! There are about 7ooo local inhabitants on that island, and there’s an estimate of about over a thousand of those strays. According to the locals, when they found out about this method to put the dogs to sleep, they thought it too cruel on the dogs as to just end their lives so suddenly. With that, they worked with MPK and decided to round up whatever dogs they could and dump them all on a deserted island. The authorities were “smart” enough to think that since the small island has game (small rats, squirrels, crabs…etc) then the dogs would be able to find food.
“What we did not realize was that the dogs are not adapt at hunting, so they could not figure out how to look for food in that sense,” one of them said. Like, DUH~! “When the dogs were unable to find food for themselves, they turned on each other.” They must have been thinking of wolves instead of dogs. Sigh…
The set flashed pictures of dogs that were killed by other dogs for meat. Needless to say, I felt like strangling one of the residents there who had thought of this insane nonsense of marooning the dogs with the hope they fend for themselves in that pitiful state. The only thought in their heads was this : as long as the dogs are out of sight and out of their lives, they were alright with whatever solutions, as the locals said. But their shortsightedness became their undoing. Geez, who would have thought it.
I mean, come on! You as a small village dweller who has got all the simple comforts of the modern world, if you were caught and marooned off in an environment where you don’t know how to survive and fend for yourself – would you actually like it? Dogs are not humans and you can’t expect them to simply adapt immediately. This is why the mentality of the people in Malaysia are doomed to stay as such, because they cannot even begin to fanthom how animals are like – that they are living breathing creatures and deserves the kind of respect and treatment all living creatures (like ourselves) should have. Just because you’re human does not make you any more superior than other living beings. Argh!!!
Dad was doubly as angry when he knew of it too. If putting the dogs to sleep, a painless way to end their existence were too cruel as according to the Pulau Ketam residents; then what is the extent of cruelty they have wrought upon the poor dogs that killed their own kind by fighting and tearing into themselves for food, and then leaving the corpses to stink and rot in the sun suppose to be?
Now the residents are pleading with the animal rights societies and associations and what-nots to help them deal with this situation because they are suffering. With the media putting their little island to attention and therefore garnering international disapproval, the local city council has forbidden them to do anymore to the dogs for fear of more reproach and backlash.
“What are we to do?” said one villager passionately. After they had complained about MPK giving them a small and insufficient amount to deal with the problem, RM 1k only, they said they started collecting funds from volunteers to purchase equipments to catch the strays. They’ve rejected the authorities’ method to put the strays to sleep, they have marooned dogs which turned into an ugly international media fiasco, and the authorities now too afraid to attract anymore unwanted (read : unprofitable) attention to their peaceful little island had ordered the locals to not do anything to the dogs.
“What are we to do?” he said. Indeed.
I wonder who brought this on themselves in the first place.
It is a lesson to be learned for sure, but will they learn it? And given the kind of situation they are in right now, it is better for it to be handled quickly and efficiently before it gets Pulau Ketam into even more trouble. Not just to be branded as humans that are cruel to animals, but with an ongoing problem like this, their economy is likely to suffer in time should their island be written off by the community as unfit to visit from all these negative news.
I am concerned as well because we need touristic spots like these to attract people. If nothing is to be done, then this is one more spot to be crossed out on the agents’ list – no matter how cheap your seafood may be.
