Agriculture minister Uri Ariel, of right-wing party Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) sparked outrage and ridicule yesterday after proposing to send Israel’s stray cats and dogs to another country as opposed to spending millions of shekels to sterilize and neuter them.
In a letter he wrote to environment protection minister Avi Gabai, Ariel suggested that the NIS 4.5 million ($1.5 million CAD) used to sterilize stray cats should instead be used “to transfer stray dogs and/or cats of a single gender [all the males or females] to a foreign nation that will agree to accept them.”
Normally, the annual budget is used to sterilize some 100,000 stray cats that roam the streets of Israel. Stray dogs are hardly a problem. However, in recent months some Israeli officials have argued that the funds could be better used, prompting backlash from animal rights groups and activists.
In his letter, Ariel did suggest an alternative: to research a method that would prevent strays from reproducing that does not involve “spraying, neutering or killing.” The minister cites Jewish law in his reasoning, claiming that the Torah forbids animal cruelty, and that neutering is a violation of the biblical commandment to populate the earth.
Rights group Let The Animals Live has since responded to Ariel’s letter, with the organization’s CEO, Yael Arkin, stating, “According to research from around the world, the only effective solution for the reproduction of street cats is spaying and neutering. The delay in transferring the budget and in spaying and neutering causes harm to cats being born into a life of suffering on the streets and also to the people in the communities where [the cats] live.”
According to Israel Hayom, the Anonymous for Animal Rights group also released a statement, saying, “As agriculture minister, Uri Ariel is responsible for the implementation of the animal cruelty law. He has promised several times to work to protect animals, and it is unfortunate and outrageous that he is actually canceling the spay and neuter program.”
Members of the Knesset also expressed their dismay at Ariel’s solution. “Minister Uri Ariel now proposes to stop spaying and neutering, for halachic reasons,” wrote MK Tamar Zandberg, of the left-wing Meretz party, on her Facebook page. “The result will not be absorption in a third country, but a dramatic rise in the number of kittens born annually, which would also increase the number of street cats who die every year from hunger, thirst, cold and dehydration.”
In addition to outrage, many have gone to Twitter to, naturally, ridicule the minister’s decision. Some Israelis were using the hashtag #cattransfer in Hebrew, and some even called the situation a “Holocaust of cats and dogs.”
It’s a CAT-astrophe! #Israel plans to force native cats from their homes! (not a joke) https://t.co/K6tAB1vUpl pic.twitter.com/yMH6u3Tli4
— Thalwen (@Thalwen) November 3, 2015
Israel in the headline. And a cute cat in the photo. It all seems so made up. https://t.co/joZKj94uZ7
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) November 3, 2015
Animal rights activists are furry-ous over minister’s solution to Israel’s stray cat problem https://t.co/V1BhaicNKS
— SAVE THE DOLPHINS (@SavetheDolphin1) November 3, 2015
A spokesperson for the agriculture ministry responded to the controversy today, stating, “Among the proposals that arose was the possibility to transfer the animals to a foreign country that would agree to this, but this proposal was rejected. At the end of the discussions, it was decided that the ministry’s chief scientist, Dr. Avi Perl, would issue a call for practical research proposals that would find lasting solutions to the reproductive problem of the animals while causing minimal pain.”
