Hunting at desire of the Belarusian TV in Belovezhskaya Pushcha
Margarita Pushchkevich, "Narodnaya Volya" (The People's Will) newspaper, January 26, 2010
Belarus is only the country in Europe where the problem of municipal shelters for animals is not settled, despite universal duty from dogs' owners.
Belarusian television has no one information programs about this problem and it tells about our attitude towards animals too.
Our address to the head of the Belarusian TV and Radio company Alexander Zimovsky in connection with creation of permanent weekly broadcast about humane treatment with animals had no result. His reply was banal, and we even can say, it was laughable – the company does not have money for it. When A. Zimovsky conversed with our representative, he said how much the broadcast costs – it is nearly $ 5000 and more. And he offered us to pay for it independently.
Besides the Belarusian television removes every plot that Moscow news show sometimes. So, on November 20 last year the plot about a dog which got lost and went to home for three years, appears in the announcement of one of Russian television channels. But Belarusian people did not see this plot.
On November 28 last year the plot of our neighbour Lithuania was announcing. It was about a person who got four years of prison for he threw a dog from a bridge. But our people did not see this either. Of course, we do not need to know that there is a country quite near which has a law "On protection of animals" and criminal punishment for cruelty towards animals is applied there, is it not so?
We have our own "priorities". For example, it is a film "Hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha" that was showing on the First National TV-channel. So, you can see such scene: wounded wild boar is in agony, and hunters set at it the dogs pack with exciting bawl. And nice music accompanies this scene that animals' death rattles would not provoke unlooked-for sympathy of audiences. Smiling girls comment this mortal amusement, for which rich foreigners arrive to us as in "Third World country". It is because nobody would let them to hunt so demonstratively in their own countries. A lot of their fellow-citizens will turn from them away and they can lose not only good name but also their post after such the demonstration.
Worst of all, this film where the shots are roaring, the dogs are licking the hot blood of dead animals off and the murder is promoted as the amusement was shown at two o’clock p.m. and our children of any age could see it. Who can know what result can be from the watching this film and how can the child’s mind react to it?
Margarita Pushchkevich,
chairman of the Council of the Public Association on Protection of Animals "Zoo-world",
The capital of Minsk.
Write Your opinion / comment / idea to the Website's Forum