A Beit Shemesh resident responds to the animal rights activists who are criticizing the Beit Shemesh municipality’s plan to shoot and kill the feral dogs terrorizing the human residents of the town.
By Ariel Siegal
There’s a LOT to know about the problem with the wild dogs and these crazy animal rights activists don’t know the first thing about it!
Firstly, we’re talking about wild dogs that are NOT pets and could never be tamed to become pets (as per the veterinarian who loves dogs and has devoted her entire career to animals!)
Ramat Beit Shemesh Resident Barak Shecter has made this explanatory video:
Secondly, yes – the problem has been here for years and getting worse. It came to a peak when the dogs have repeatedly and constantly attacked residents. Quite a few people have been bitten and mauled but the animal rights activists deny this – despite never having even been here!
In fact, I watched last night as a young 20-year-old woman who was mauled a few months ago tried to reason with them. She tried proving that she had been personally attacked, bitten and dragged down the street by a pack of dogs… yet, these crazy animal rights activists denied it all. They spewed all kinds of hatred at the poor woman! They accused her of making it up, putting on makeup to look like wounds, etc, etc, etc. The personal grovelling apologies that they owe that woman is unbelievable! I’ve met this woman and seen the wounds!
Many many others have narrowly escaped while the wild dogs have chased them. This includes men, women and children. Again, we are NOT talking about house pets. The people who have been attacked have had to undergo painful rabies vaccine regimens. They have also undergone extensive wound treatments and psychological care after the mauling. Many people have become scared to go out into the streets.
Thirdly, these wild dogs are NOT native wildlife. They’re not part of the ecology that need to be protected. Instead, they’ve slowly formed aggressive packs and terrorize the citizens and destroy the ecolife of native wildlife here (such as the jackals, who now have to compete for resources). Some animal rights activists have tried to claim that this is all happening because of human construction that has encroached on the dogs’ territories. This couldn’t be further from the truth! These dogs have been coming into the area to find food since they are not natural hunters that are successfully able to survive on their own. Again, these are not native wildlife that have been chased out of their natural habitat! This isn’t speculation or my gut feelings on the matter – this is per the animal experts who have been here trying to deal with the problem!
Fourthly, the municipality and the relevant national government agencies have been aware and involved in this struggle for years. They have literally tried EVERYTHING imaginable to deal with these dogs BEFORE trying to shoot them. This has included everything from limiting food sources, to trapping the dogs, to tranquilizing the dogs and quarantining them. As a note, some of the deranged animal rights activists have actually tampered with or stolen the cage traps meant to gently trap the dogs so that they could have been moved to a better area. These same animal rights activists destroyed any chance at gently dealing with these dangerous dogs!! In addition, some of the traps were stolen by Bedouin Arabs and likely sold for their metal value.
Quite a few dog catchers, professional wildlife experts and a veterinarian have made attempts to gently remove these wild dogs without success – for years! It has been so bad that a team of volunteer citizens has tried helping the professionals, going off on operations with the veterinarian and dog catchers. The vet would shoot a tranquilizer at the dogs, who would then dart off running for up to 10 minutes until the tranquilizer would take affect. During that time the volunteers would literally run after the dogs hoping to track them until they fall asleep. This has failed miserably since the dogs were way to fast and able to get to places humans couldn’t. I personally tried in these efforts!
This is just a taste of what has been tried unsuccessfully. In fact, not only has it not worked, the dogs have just become MORE aggressive and dangerous to human life! It was only after yet another woman was attacked and bitten a few days ago that the agriculture and animal experts finally agreed to shoot the dogs. In my opinion, it’s beyond ridiculous and negligent that it took them this long to come to this point!
The crazy animal rights activists have declared the most ridiculous things… such as, “there must be a more humane way of dealing with these dogs besides shooting them.” When challenged to come up with some better solutions they say moronic things like, “well, I’m not the expert so it’s not my job to come up with solutions… I just know that there’s a better way.”
REALLY?!?!? Because we’ve had all of the experts out here and they’ve tried EVERYTHING… this is THEIR words, NOT ours! The experts are the ones now saying that they need to shoot the dogs. So, the crazy armchair warriors can settle down. If they want to come out and adopt some wild dogs, go ahead. Other than that, keep silent about things you don’t know! The funny thing is, these people keep using terms like “humane” ways of dealing with the problem.
Bizarrely they don’t seem to see the word HUMAN in that word and they obsess about the animals while completely ignoring the human beings being attacked here! You literally can’t make this garbage up in your wildest dreams!
Finally (for the moment, since there’s really so much more to say), if this is bizarrely what puts the animal rights activists on the right path… there have been many pets (dogs and cats) that have been attacked by these wild dogs as the pet owners take them out for a walk in the area. So, if you are truly an animal-lover then we need to protect the poor defenseless animals by dealing with these dangerous wild dogs!
As for the important idea of tza’ar ba’alei chaim… we all know that these are important halachot but we also know that human life must come first. The tza’ar ba’alei chaim part in this situation just means that we shouldn’t terrorize or prolong the death of these dangerous wild dogs. You should note that we have discussed this all at great length with the Rabbanim and poskim of the community. This is not been a debate even among them! The only ones who pull out the tza’ar ba’alei chaim card are the far-left animal rights activists who don’t care about human life and dignity.