Souq Waqif - Animal Alley
Whilst people continue to struggle to go about their daily business in extremely high temperatures this summer, there is another group of creatures who continue to suffer in the heat, and many of them are covered in fur.
At the animal souq at Souq Waqif, hundreds of animals and birds are left outside each afternoon, with shopkeepers hoping to attract sales even during this quiet time of the year.
Many animals are being displayed in small cages outside and a large percentage of them are being left without any water or food.
The suffering of these small animals is obvious, with most shaking constantly from the effort of drawing breath in the heat. Indeed cages rattled as the exhausted animals panted.
Conditions have improved since the animal souq opened, and cleanliness seems to have become a more of a priority for most people working there. Efforts have also been made to present the cages and animals in a more healthy light, and some stores are obviously looking after the animals they are housing.
However, the unfortunate majority of shops are still dirty and feature collections of tragic-looking animals, with many obviously suffering from infections, poor health and malnutrition.
One small dog was being kept in a cage in which it could barely move, without food or water and quite obviously coated in its own waste. The vendor in charge responded dismissively by saying that the animal had drunk some water earlier in the day.
With reports of animal dying in the heat already being circulated, it seems only a matter of time before many of the young pets on sale at Souq Waqif succumb to the extreme heat of summer in Qatar.
And although there is now a veterinarian at the souq, it would seem that conditions still need to improve some distance before complying with international animal welfare standards.
QAWS chairperson, Janet Berry said of the section at Souq Waqif: “QAWS continues to get weekly calls from concerned parties who have visited the pet section in Souq Waqif. Heat exhaustion is a killer and some of these people calling QAWS have witnessed dead animals in cages morning, noon and night.”
“Others call to tell QAWS they have purchased the animal to try to save it - sadly the local vet is the first port of call for these buyers and the animal rarely survives,” she claimed, adding “it is hard to walk away from an obviously suffering animal but QAWS urges people to remember that every riyal handed over to the pet shops is a riyal used to purchase more pets, to increase the number of pets in this situation, to increase the numbers suffering”.
“Souq Waqif is a lovely place spoilt by one section, more and more people stay away due to this “animal alley”, she added.
Source: www.gulf-times.com
QAWS gets calls every week from distressed visitors who have seen dead animals in cages, witnessed obviously sick animals being sold to unsuspecting passer-bys, animals dyed bright colours & forced to wear clothes, children poking and hitting animals in cages, the list continues.
QAWS urges all visitors, please do NOT buy any animals from the Souq. Although you may feel like you are helping that animal, you are actually paying for more animals to be condemned to a life of misery. Don't be a part of this trade in sick, injured & dying animals
I was horrified by the animals living conditions that I experienced last night when I visited the Wharf Souqs. I am glad to see that there are people here that are taking notice of the conditions these animals endure, in what I fear are going to be their last days on this earth. I could not believe that the shop owners would not provide water for some of the animals, and if they did have water the twenty other animals in the cage were fighting to get to it. I saw some animals deceased on the bottom of the cage while other animals climbed over top of the deceased body to get to what water or food was in their cage. I only wish I was going to be in this country for a longer period, so I could help do something about the conditions. I don’t know how well this would be received, but if you know of anyone going down to the souqs, tell them to take water for these animals. This is a tragedy, and a black eye for any society. I can only hope that these animals depart this earth in a timely matter, to ease their suffering and to deprive the shop keepers form making a profit.
I saw this for myself last week when i was in the souq. I was fascinated at the pink chickens i saw, only to find out that they were dyed. And then to discover large animals in cramped cages was rather horrific.
Some of the animals looked like they were on their way to dying too =/
The numbers of sick and dying animals in Souq Waqif is ridiculous. There's even ringworm floating around some of the cages where they keep dogs & cats and that's contagious to people as well.
We'll visit the vets this week and see if we can arrange a visit to the souq with them to discuss all the things that need stricter regulations.
The owners name can be found in the municipality license certificate inside each shop, Still this will not make a difference . Many of those owners can be old men or women , who were encouraged by the goverment to open pets shops. Some of them might have never visited their shops and just receive the monthly profit
I think The best solution would be that the animal resources department take up this subject and their vets uses the law enforcement authority given to them by law.
Few months back, they did crack down the camel souk after some cases of livestock mortality were reported
I highly doubt they'd release that info to an expat without good reason. They're not silly and they know that there are so many complaints about the Souq that releasing that kind of info will only cause trouble. Again, the owners just don't care about the animals so going to them won't make a difference - they're only out for the money. If we can get the authorities to tighten their license requirements & regulations then the owners will have no choice but to comply.
the licensing agencies or minister of business. There has to be a place where all businesses are registered. Is this info kept confidential?
All the "shops" are owned by different people and they're not willing to give away names - we've tried!!
Write a letter to the Animal Resource Department & the Ministry of Environment and even the Department of Health :D
Email QAWS with a letter of complaint and any photos you have. We're compiling a dossier of letters, photos, info, anything we can to submit to the authorities.
When you're at the Souq - make a point of telling the "keepers" to give them water and make them do it whilst you're there. Point out every sick animal, dead animal or cage with too many animals in it. But be nice - if you scream and shout they shut down and ignore you. Remember these people are hired as shop workers and don't know the first thing about animals and are rarely animal lovers. The more we point out things that need changing, we're slowly educating them.
We won't get any changes made through the staff or owners of the shops - they just don't care. We need to aim for the authorities and in the meantime try to ease the animals suffering in any small way we can.
I am game to help in any way I can. I'll be glad to write letters and try to get an appointment to talk to anyone you think can help. I'll also spread the work among my Qatari friends and colleagues. But what else can we do?
I am always discouraging people from buying from those pet stores. Is there a way to find out who owns them and approach them directly?
Let's consider this a call to action.
Here is an idea. Why doesn't somebody go there and take pictures of those poor animals? Oh, and of the shopkeepers too. Post them on QL and other forums, soon enough they will be picked up by the newspapers.
It might not change much, but at least it is a try.
Now that's interesting - I hadn't realised it was the vets who did the inspections... Now I wonder why they didn't mention that to us everytime we've been in to see them about the Souq ;)
Do you know who sets the regulations for the pet shop licenses? Is it the Animal Resource Department? There must be something in there that states minimum guidelines for space etc. Maybe we could work on improving that to start with.
Now here what I gathered so far, Animal health department is under the ministry of environment.
The animal health law (1 / 1985) article 17 states that “ vets working under the Department of Animal Health and their assistants, shall be law enforcement officers and have the right to enter into anywhere there are animals(except for the residential places) for inspection, probe violations and to take necessary protective actions”
As you may have guessed, health inspection were mainly concerned about the place hygiene and not the welfare of animals
As you’re much aware by now, there is no animal welfare culture here ( I guess not in the entire region). Until recently , not many locals would nurture pets at their homes Some of those establishments were originally in the central market before being attracted to lease shops in souk waqef.
I think it would take a serious awareness campaign to change the local mindset about animal welfare. Until then I’m afraid not many would
take this subject seriously
Flor- I really doubt if you can mix anything in the food. But you can feed them say a week or so just to get their trust on you. And then u can trap them in a cage and take to the government vet.
The government runs a free neutering program for stray cats and they go round the country trapping, neutering & releasing the strays. The same has to be said for pet cats though - they MUST be neutered in case they get out of the villa/apartment.
the only way we help these animal is by rejection.If customer reject to buy the animal on account of illness and malnorishment there will be improvement .
Awareness campaighn may also help I doubt how many people can be taught this.
a stray cat? Is there a way you can mixed on the food and will make them neutered! It's the only way to attract them! There are plenty in and outside our villa!
well, everytime I visit animal area in souq, I always question people there about the situation. But they just smile or move out. Even owners (Mainly locals) are not bothered to look at u and answer ur questions. There are only few ways to manage this things.
- Every pet and street cats should be neutered/ spayed
- Not buying pets from Souq
- Controling the pets coming from other countries
You've said what so many of us think! Surely,even a non animal lover can't fail to be moved by the terrible plight those poor animals and birds are suffering?
It's bad enough seeing the wild creatures suffering in the heat,but to actively cage them and then not provide water and shade is nothing less than criminal. I wont go there anymore as it upsets me too much,literally reducing me to tears. I know it's hard for some people to understand that,plenty will think I'm just a sentimental soppy brit,but I can't help that. I can't bear cruelty of any kind.I've brought my 2 dogs out with us,but have left my cat and 2 horses in the good care of friends back in UK as I feel the extreme heat would be just too much for them to cope with.
I will get up to QAWS in due course and offer my help in any way I can. Sadly, that won't help the animals in the Souq,but there's nothing much we can do about that.
Although the individual shops are privately owned, we know they have to have licenses to operate and sell animals. If we could just raise the standards required to obtain a license then surely the shop owners would have no choice but to comply? It wouldn't be individual attacks on them, but an overall standard increase.
To be honest I don't think the inspections actually care about animal welfare. From what I can gather, they go and have a look at the cleanliness of the Souq in general, and note the smell, but nothing is done about individual animals.
There are CITES protected animals there with no paperwork, dead animals lying in cages and buckets, animals wearing clothes and dyed multi-colours, cats with eye infections, dogs with ringworm, animals in cramped cages with no food or water, and nothing gets done about it.
QAWS would love to sit with the inspection people to help put together requirements for the welfare of the animals and help the authorities get on top of this.
We're not un-realistic, we know we'll never get the souq shut down, but if we can limit the animals allowed to be sold (no wild or illegal animals, dogs or cats), and help get better living arrangements for the animals that can be sold, it will improve the whole atmosphere and there will be a lot less complaints and sick animals.
Unfortunately there are no laws pertaining to animal cruelty so nothing can be done legally to prosecute these people.
However, the more people that make official complaints, and the more people that stand up and tell the shop owners to give the animals water & shade, the more they will stop to think that maybe things do need to change.
If people refuse to buy sick and dying animals, the shop keepers will HAVE to improve their standards to get customers to come back to them.
We have no control over what animals they bring in from overseas (birds, hamsters, rabbits etc) and the dogs and cats are got locally so we can't control that, but we can all control how many animals are bought from there.
PLEASE contact QAWS if you are looking for a pet. Not only do we have dogs and cats, but we also have a variety of rabbits, hamsters and occasionally birds too.
I’m really sorry to read this
Were there any recent Municipal inspection?( I can do some calls to confirm this)
The problem with those establishments that they are privately owned, any interference from the government will be seen by the owners as an attempt to destroy their business
Chelsea, I completely agree with you about not buying animals from the souq. But I dont think thats the only solution to save the animals. Its seen to everyone here in government that animals are in very very bad positions at souqs, still no action against them? Also, I am not sure but they must be getting the cats and dogs from some other countries. Why its not banned or rejected?
Is there any law to punish these people?