Animal rights and owners

I thank Ant. Muscat Doublesin (December 7) for making the clarification that he is not against an animal rights act. But I'm sure that he will excuse my thinking that he was against it, since to say that "a mess was left...by a dog owner who wants to waste its precious time and the country's money on an Animal Act" leaves not much room for interpretation. But perhaps it was just a linguistic error. Mr Muscat Doublesin will understand our concern, since all it takes for several years of campaigning for tougher laws on animal abuse to blow away is for people to say the laws will be a waste of time and money.

Regarding pet carers who do not clean after their animals, I have already given my opinion. These should be heavily fined.

Regarding my wasting precious time in sub-committee meetings because "the authorities won't talk to (me)", perhaps Mr Muscat Doublesin has misunderstood me. The sub-committee meetings were held within the government's Animal Welfare Council, the chairman being a government official.

This is the problem. The authorities did speak to us (animal protection organisations) for a whole year but none of our proposals were ever made into law.

Regarding forming an animal owners' association, I will not involve myself in such a project for the simple reason that animal rights are not something which should concern only animal "owners". In fact, strictly speaking, the animal rights philosophy does not recognise animal ownership since animals are not property. It is for this reason that animal rights activists are generally against the breeding and selling of animals, and are only for the rescue and adoption of stray and abandoned animals.