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About ARC(Animal Responsibility Cyprus)
ARC(Animal Responsibility Cyprus) was founded in 1994 by Patricia Radnor and Kyriacos Kyriacou and registered with the government of the Republic of Cyprus.
Patricia Radnor
He was born in Scotland and have lived in Cyprus for many years. He spent decades teaching and writing, and has also lived in Canada and Saudi Arabia.
He feels the animal work as spiritual work. Humans are unlikely to evolve to the stage where we can live in peace with each other until they have stopped killing the other animals with whom we share this planet.
Major influences on his thinking have been Henry Salt, John Howard Moore, Dr Tom Regan, Dr Temple Grandin, Dr Andrew Linzey and Dr Marc Bekoff. The first two are long since dead, but their writings are well worth seeking out. All of the others have websites, and their books are readily available.
Kyriacos Kyriacou
He is the co-founder of ARC with Patricia, and also a founder member of the Cyprus Green Party. He is also on the District Animal Welfare Committee (appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and Environment).
He has devoted himself to animals. In Cyprus they have a strong meat-eating culture – even among environmentalists – so he is trying to change public attitudes.
Networking
Organizations with similar interests
Overseas
WSPA: World Society for the Protection of Animals www.wspa.org.uk
CIWF: Compassion in World Farming www.ciwf.org
BFF: Born Free Foundation www.bornfree.org.uk
EUROGROUP: Eurogroup for Animals
Animal People: www.animalpeoplenews.org
Local veterinary department in Cyprus
This is where you make a complaint about animal cruelty or neglect. Don’t just be a whiner writing to a newspaper – take action! Use your rights! Use the law! Cyprus has an excellent animal welfare law (46/1994)
Here is the procedure:
– The Veterinary Department must send someone to check out the animal(s).
– The owner is warned and told what steps s/he must carry out.
– If no improvement, the Veterinary Department will return with a police officer.
– If still no improvement, the owner can be charged.
Mission
-To encourage the awareness that humans have a moral obligation to respect all living creatures.
– To promote respect for and interest in animals; to enlighten the public.To inform, to educate, to re- educate, to guide and advise the public and relevant official bodies on humane standards.
– To provide information about humane standards of behavior through leaflets, through film and through the media.
– To bring to light effectively, the issues involving animal abuse/ neglect suffering in Cyprus
– To promote study and to discuss all issues related to animal welfare in Cyprus
– To encourage authorities to implement and enforce existing and new Animal Production legislation.
Batty about bats
Why don’t you join the current project – the wonderful world of Cyprus bats? The new project began in summer 2006 when we learned that the fruit bats of Cyprus were unprotected and were being shot for fun.
Bats are strictly protected by law in every EU country including Cyprus, of course. Yet practically no measures had been taken to set up any conservation system more than a decade after bat work had begun in countries such as Ireland or the UK.
In only a few months, ARC had produced posters and leaflets in English, Greek and Turkish. They also succeeded in co-organising the island’s first seminar on bats, which was attended by government personnel from Forestry and other departments.
They also succeeded in getting the Competent Authority (Department of Environment) to erect protective fences around the fruit bats’ cave roosts.
Did you know?
Cyprus is the only EU country to have fruit-eating bats? These megechiropterans (or large bats) may come to your garden to feed, if you have fig trees or mesphila. You may see the mother bats with their infant clinging to their belly, before the young are able to fly.
Why you are lucky if u have bats visited your garden?
One of the small insect-eating (microchiropteran) bats can eat literally thousands of mosquitoes each evening, amounting to tons in one year. Please don’t spray insecticides – let these harmless little creatures do the job.
What can you do?
– Put up a couple of bat boxes
– Contact ARC for leaflets/ posters to distribute
– Count your bats.
– Contact ARC and they can visit with a bat detector and tell you what species you have.
– Join the bat walk.
– Teachers – ask them to visit your school – use our bat educational worksheets
Silly Myths
– Bats cannot get caught in your hair – their echolocation is so finely tuned that they can detect a spider’s web.
– Bats will collect in your house. Not true. Each bat can only have one baby per year (it is a mammal like us). Bats constantly move – from maternity roosts to hibernation roosts etc.
New Animal Welfare Law at Nicosia Cyprus
Michalis Lagos, Health Inspector of Nicosia Municipality, said that the growing problem with animal welfare and stray dogs needs to be more flexible. Productive law that will hopefully be in place at the end of this year.
The local municipalities, interior ministry, officials from the game fund veterinary services and NGO’s have been conducted to contribute in constructing a new law that will oversee swifter and efficient handling of situations where animals have been abandoned.
Lagos said, “In many situations it boils down to the owners of the animals. It happens especially in cases of stray dogs. All animals have certain needs, whether they are dietary or physical and the people looking to purchase a pet should complete the necessary research to learn what they are getting themselves into.”
According to Lagos, the Nicosia Municipality had received a number of reports about the stray dogs, which he put down to the end of hunting season. He added, “There is always an increase in numbers of dogs at this time of the year at the end of hunting season, a problem that we hope the new law will eradicate.“
A stray dog is picked by the local authorities and they pick it in temporary care for 15 days. If its owner doesn’t come back to look it, it is handed to the Nicosia Dog Shelter. Nicosia municipality advertises about the lost dogs in the papers, hoping that the owner can be found.
Charalambos Theopemtou, Environment Commissioner, beliefs that many active organizations that work on the behalf of the animals have been founded, but there is still room for improvement. He said, “Serious improvements need to happen to our laws and to our practices.” However, constructing new animal law has been praised by all.
Animal Life in Cyprus
There are so many animals available in Cyprus, but the people have been treating poorly with them. However, some people came ahead and took the responsibility to save them. Fortunately, many of the people now understand the role of the animals in the human life. Anyway, today I am going tell about animal life here in Cyprus.
As told there are many animals as it’s in Cyprus. One of the most famous wild animals is the moufflon. It’s a shy mountain sheep found in the Stavros tis Psokas. The Stavros this Psokas is situated in the Paphos forest. There are also many goats and sheep grazing the hilly landscape. Donkeys can be found in wine-growing areas. Additionally, you can find small animals such as hares, foxes, squirrels and rabbits in the forest.
Summer dry landscape is a natural home for snakes, lizards and chameleons of Cyprus. I can bet you will love to see the reptiles crossing your paths or perhaps taking sun bath on a stone. Rare sea turtles have made Lara Beach as their home. Often, sea turtles swim in the daytime near the coast of Mediterranean. Over 260 species of fish live off the coast.
Over 375 species of birds have been identified here in Cyprus. This is because migrating birds make their stop here in the winter season. There are also many other birds come to Cyprus for breeding. This is the reason why ornithologists love Cyprus.
Many tourist travels with their pet animals. In Cyprus, carrying pet animals is open, there is, however, some rules that must be followed. If you want to carry your personal pet animal, then it should be a problem. The restriction is, you cannot carry the animals for commercial purposes.
New acts to Improve Animal Care
A new act has been introduced by the National Farm Animal Care Council. According to the council it will allow the industry, people and farm owners to treat the animals in an updated way. Council is expecting a positive impact on the owners and they will have an updated way to communicate and understanding of how farm animals should be taken care in Canada.
The Council of National farm animal in collaboration with diverse stakeholders is working hard to promote the awareness among farm owners for animal care and welfare. They implemented the new code so that the owners can have an extra-ordinary outline about how to take care of the farm animals. This updated code will be the new law for treating animal.
The Council worked on the already existing animal welfare codes and after their research and work of several years they’ve become successful to point out the main lacking and they updated eight codes of practice. Pigs, beef cattle, sheep, equine, farmed mink, farmed fox, poultry related to the meat bird side including broilers, turkey and hatching eggs as well a code for laying hens have been updated.
The officials of the National Farm Animal Care Council believe that some of the code of practice has become quite back dated so they took the measure in their hand and pled to update the codes. The codes are nationally developed guidelines for the care and handling of farm animals and now it’s time to update the code so that owners can take good care of their farm animals.
The codes of practice cover housing management, food and water, health, transportation and euthanasia. Codes are intended to provide better management and outline for animal welfare and with the recent update the scenario will be lot better.