Liz' article in El Nuevo Dia

I copied this directly from Liz' blog.

My Latest Article In El Nuevo Dia

Below is my latest article that hit El Nuevo Dia today with photographs I took that were printed in the paper version of the article. The English translation of the article is below as is a link to the Spanish version. The Spanish version has been cut to some extent, but the English version is as it was submitted.

Members of the Puerto Rico Coalition for the Well-Being of Animals, whose recently submitted proposal to the veterinary licensing board asking for a temporary license and waiver for Remote Area Medical (RAM) veterinary group to come to Puerto Rico and work alongside local vets in holding intensive spay/neuter clinics for the low-income population, were denied their request by letter from the board citing that each vet would need to be sponsored individually by a local veterinarian. Although in their denial the board did come back with this alternate requirement, Coalition members aren't sure finding sponsorship for the four RAM vets would gain the board's acceptance of the proposal.

Copies of the initial proposal were also submitted to the Housing Administration, Puerto Rico Tourism Company (PRTC) and the Puerto Rico Hotel & Tourism Association (PRHTA) for their support, among numerous others, and the proposal's denial comes on the heels of the Barceloneta tragedy where 80 animals were seized from low-income housing residents and thrown to their deaths from a bridge in neighboring Vega Baja, an act which Tourism conservatively estimated cost Puerto Rico 15 million in tourism dollars as news of the incident was broadcast worldwide.

Traditionally the licensing board and college of veterinarians has not allowed outside vets to come and practice medicine in Puerto Rico, despite the necessity of Puerto Rico adopting humane solutions to address the animal overpopulation problem, seeing outside veterinarians as a threat to the business of local veterinarians; a big oversight on their part, according to Christine Driscoll Rodriguez, president and founder of Amigos de los Animales and Coalition member.

"What these agencies and associations don't realize, is that nonprofits like ours, not to mention the countless others on the island, staunchly support the local veterinarians. Amigos de los Animales alone supported them to the tune of more than $50K last year. And it's not acceptable for government to simply implement animal control measures, sweeping beaches and other areas of animals, without adopting statistically proven humane solutions such as spay and neuter and trap, neuter and return [TNR], both of which prevent the births of hundreds of thousands of animals."

Coalition members were told early on that their proposal would not be accepted because members of the veterinary licensing board and the college of veterinarians are not progressive enough in their policies and are undereducated on alternative humane "best practices" in dealing with animal overpopulation issues. But the question remains, can Puerto Rico afford not to adopt humane solutions to combat the pet-overpopulation crisis? It is statistically proven that animal control alone cannot adequately address animal over-population issues.

With tourism a growing support to the local economy, an economy in its third year of recession, and the media continuing to keep a watchful eye on animal welfare in Puerto Rico (recent articles include March 9th in The New York Times, People magazine's April 28th edition and a spot on the Ellen DeGeneres show in May), rescue organizations are wondering how many more tourism dollars need to be lost in order for government to see Puerto Rico is facing an image crisis precisely because it has no humane alternatives in place. "I think government doesn't realize the extent of the relationship between animal welfare advocates and the media. We are going to keep the pressure on until they embrace humane alternatives," continued Driscoll Rodriguez.

According to the proposal submitted, the spay/neuter event would target the pets of low-income residents—in collaboration with the Housing Administration—in as many as seven to 10 different municipalities where local veterinarians and rescue groups have expressed an interest in participating. RAM would work under the local vets and rescue groups associated with them to spay and neuter as many as 125 animals in each location. However, the real investment of this initiative would have come from the training of volunteers who would then be able to host future events for veterinarians willing to donate their time to this worthy cause.

http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/puertoricohoy/noticias/tronchada_la_ayuda_humanitaria/424436"

Picture Key: 1) Three male dogs following a female dog in heat on Playa Lucia (Dead Dog Beach) 2) Christine Driscoll Rodriguez, president and founder of Amigos de los Animales, holding three puppies about to be rescued from Dead Dog Beach. The puppies were sent to a dalmatian rescue group in Florida and have since been adopted.