The Practice Of releasing Animals Or Protecting Life (republished)
AnimalCare 
May 5, 2014 
AnimalCare, NGOs 
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With Wesak around the corner, it often worries me if some devotees will engage in the often misguided and sometimes unmindful practice of purchasing birds, tortoises and other animals from petstores and indiscriminately releasing them. What they may not realise is that in some cases, unscrupulous traders capture these animals for the purpose of selling them to devotees and once the animals are released, they may be recaptured to be resold. Hence, supporting such a trade defeats the purpose of “releasing animals”, creates a demeritorious cycle profiting only the traders and catchers, and inadvertently causes untold suffering and even death for the animals in transit.
Please permit me to publish this article below which we circulated in 2009 to the residents of a certain island when their act of dog-dumping was brought to light. The villagers were dumping dogs to the neighbouring swampy islands under the pretext of “releasing animals” which they claimed was a religious (and meritorious) ritual. Of course for some of them, it was just a convenient way to get rid of the poor stray dogs on their island. The dogs had no way of finding food on those swampy islands and many died of starvation or of being attacked by snakes and wild boar.
First published:https://sites.google.com/site/kindnesstoanimalsinc/wisdom-of-releasing-animals
This article is still very relevant today:
(extracted from the writings of Master Sheng Yen)
centuries. The releasing of animals is an expression of compassion and
its aim is toprotect life. Buddhists believe that all life deserves
protection – besides caring for human beings, all other animals should
also be equally cared for.
Although releasing animals has been practised for centuries, people
today, with increased knowledge about the workings of eco-systems,
have started questioning if our modern practice of releasing animals
still conform to the initial purpose of protecting life. For instance,
some people release river fish into the sea, and sea fish into the
rivers. Are these practices appropriate? In fact, all animals require
specific environments in which to live well. When they are released
into unsuitable environments, this could lead to their deaths.
Issues surrounding wild dogs and stray dogs are, in fact, caused by
human activities. Therefore, suitable legislation should be in place
to regulate how dog owners ought to behave.
Furthermore, neither the killing nor non-killing of stray dogs offers a
permanent solution. One could consider neutering or spaying them, so
that they do not continue to breed. The media can contribute by
encouraging dog owners not to abandon their dogs. If a dog owner has
no choice but to give up his dog, he could go through a dog rescue
centre to find a suitable home for the dog.
It is hoped that with these efforts, we can reduce the damage and
suffering human beings cause to animals and the environments in which they live.
Simply written, but addresses the point loud and clear.
So may we reiterate the Venerable’s message above and appeal to everyone who might have the intention of “releasing animals” this Wesak to please:
A. (If you still wish to release) Please release the animals only to habitats where they will continue to survive, thrive, be able to find food and be safe (not be caught and sold again). But please also find out where the animals are obtained in the first place. Do not support the unscrupulous trade of capturing and selling animals. There is much suffering and demerit in this practice.
B. Instead of (A), why not consider getting street animals neutered? It is also a good practice of protecting life, as explained in the article above. If you’d rather not do hands-on work, then support those who do by contributing to our Fund. We subsidise the neutering and vaccination of street animals. For a donation of RM150, you get to subsidise the neutering of a street dog, RM100 for a street cat and RM25 for each vaccination: www.myanimalcare.org/subsidy/.
C. Support organisations that rescues animals from slaughterhouses to be rehomed as farm helpers or pets. For example, there is a temple that purchases cows from slaughterhouses in Sri Lanka and rehomes the cows to Buddhist and Hindu farmers knowing that these cows will never be slaughtered in their old age. This is a great act of releasing animals (from the slaughterhouse) and protecting their lives.
In whatever meritorious act that we do, let it come from a compassionate heart and let it be done wisely. Most important, in any act of compassion, the beneficiary is the recipient, not the giver. So let us think of how the animals can benefit from our acts. They must benefit from what we do.
Right or wrong – our conscience knows. Just look deeply and the answer is there!
Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2014/05/05/the-practice-of-releasing..
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