Monday, May 4, 2009

DOGS STARVING TO DEATH ON MANGROVE ISLAND ~ URGENT ALERT!

About 300 stray dogs were rounded up by Pulau Ketam residents and deported to an isolated island to fend for themselves. Over half of them are already dead and the remaining ones may not live long. A rescue mission is being mounted and your help is needed. Please read the full story here.


The residents of Pulau Ketam sent some 300 stray dogs to exile on a remote island where the harsh conditions almost certainly guarantee a horrible death. Of the 300 dogs sent there, more than three-quarters are presumed to be already dead. I traveled to the island with Sabrina Yeap of Furry Friends Farm and managed to save only one dog on this reconnaissance trip. We did see several other starving and dying dogs along the mangrove shore.

I am mounting an urgent rescue mission to capture and transport the remaining survivors back to Sabrina's Furry Friends Farm animal shelter. But time is running out and there might be only skeletons and carcasses left to collect on our next trip. Boat hire is expensive there. It is a tourist area and it has already cost me a few hundred ringgit for boat hire alone, so far. The rescued dogs cannot be transported on the regular ferries.

Almost nobody will lift a finger to help without a fee. This is understandable. The locals are already shaking their heads in disbelief that there are outsiders who want to save the animals they so casually discarded. Instead of pointing fingers and antagonising them, we need their co-operation to help save the unfortunate creatures. In the process, we also hope to educate the islanders on better treatment of animals. It would be an impossible mission if we didn't win their hearts.

If you are unable to help directly, please help by forwarding this appeal to other compassionate folks who you feel might be able to make some monetary contributions.

Apart from boat hire, we need money to buy cages, to pay people to help catch them, to hire land transport to send the rescued animals to veterinary clinics, pay for vet fees, send the recovered ones to the shelter and to feed and house them for life. I can go on!

Kind folks are asking how they can donate. Funds can be banked in or transferred to: Furry Friends Farm account CIMB 1457-000-1182-05-6. You can also transfer via PayPal to tvsmith@gmail.com


Fellow bloggers, you can also help by publicizing the desperate plight of these hapless canines. Embed a poster from here and link to http://www.mycen.com.my/rescue

We are aware it is a monumental task and appreciate all forms of support, assistance, suggestions, encouragement and your prayers.

Thank you and don't forget to view the pictures of the dogs in order to appreciate their plight.

Visit also Furry Friends Farm's Blog / Website

TV Smith
3 May 2009



NOTE: TV Smith is the owner of Malaysia Central (a pioneering local search directory and news portal), a well-known blogger, photographer, videographer and ubiquitous man-about-town. An old friend of mine, TV Smith is a one-in-a-million kind of guy and I salute his noble efforts on behalf of these unfortunate canines who have been left to die a slow and hellish death by people who have yet to understand the meaning of compassion - and yet claim to be worshipers of Kwan Yin, goddess of mercy.

The true measure of civilization is the way a community deals with social outcasts like immigrants (legal or otherwise), stray dogs, and the transgendered. So long as barbaric laws exist that allow our government to detain people without trial or imprison people for sexual acts "against the order of nature," Malaysia remains classified as an Uncivilized Feudal State of Well-Dressed Primates.