All It Takes Is One Person
AnimalCare 
Oct 22, 2013 
AnimalCare, NGOs 
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A few days ago, I was helping a friend with a problem. It is a problem that many animal rescuers might face one day and all it takes is one person to create that problem.
This friend is an animal caregiver who looks after many community animals. She was in hospital when it happened. The council came and took away some of her community animals. Everything was captured on her neighbour’s CCTV and her neighbour quickly alerted her. She texted me from the hospital to ask for help.
A long story cut short, she managed to get her animals back from the pound. She was “lucky” that the animals were sent to the pound and at least the owner still had a chance to get his/her animals back on the same day before anything untoward happened to them.
So, who lodged the complaint that alerted the authorities to check on her area? She had been living for decades in this animal-loving community and as far as she knows, all her neighbours are animal-loving people.
What’s worse is that once a complaint is lodged, the authorities have to act and not only do they catch those specific animals, they have to check on the neighbours as well. As a result of that one complaint, her neighbours also suffered and it goes without saying that their animals suffered as well.
The complainant turned out to be someone who had a grudge against her and also, someone who hates animals. It was someone who had just moved into the neighbourhood recently.
This is the plight of animal feeders and community animals. Many dog caregivers inadvertently break the law in that they keep one too many dogs than the permitted number. If nobody complains, the dogs will be safe, but the moment someone lodges a complaint, the dog caregiver would be faced with the nightmare of having to quickly relocate his/her dogs. This is not an easy thing to do.
Community cats also face the same plight. Many cat-feeders look after community cats who are free roaming. But once a complaint is lodged, all free roaming animals will be captured too.
The law is not tolerant of the presence of any free-roaming non-human animal. So, the moment a complaint against any street animal is lodged, the authorities have to act according to the law. The animal will be captured and we all know what this leads to.
So, what must we do in order to keep our animals safe?
1. Adopt or rehome the animals.
2. Confine the (community) animals safely in our house compound. Do not allow the animal to roam in any public area. As much as we wish return-to-colony is feasible, it isn’t possible to adopt this if our neighbourhood is not animal-friendly.
3. For the safety and wellbeing of our animals, do not make enemies with any human. Some humans have this weakness in them in that if they cannot get you, they will get your defenseless dependents. It’s a trait in lowly evolved humans. Sad and pathetic, but true.
There are many humans who think that this planet only belongs to humans and humans alone. They want to live in an animal-free concrete jungle. They cannot stand the sight of a stray cat or dog. The sad thing is that these humans form the majority of urban dwellers these days.
They are also the ones who forget that biologist Jonas Salk said:
If all insects on Earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on
Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth,
within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.
We live amongst ignorant human beings who think of themselves as being superior to all other beings, who refuse to live in harmony with other beings and who strive to control life on earth not knowing that the more they try to control, the more damage they will bring upon themselves.
Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2013/10/22/all-it-takes-is-one-person/
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