Despite the toughened laws on animal cruelty, its enforcement remains an issue

It’s been two months since the Parliament of Georgia amended the administrative and criminal code and toughened the penalties for the cruel and inhumane treatment of animals.

The cruel, inhumane and brutal acts towards animals and birds are punishable by the administrative law. If the aforementioned acts result in the death of the animal, the criminal law comes into effect.

However, the issue of enforcing the new toughened law remains a major issue, with the photos and videos depicting animals in horrible states flooding the Georgian social media daily.

GSPSA - Georgian Society for the Protection and Safety of Animals, Georgian non-profit organization working on protection of animals recently publicized a video depicting bear cubs in captivity at a restaurant in the village of Variani (Gori Municipality). According to GSPSA, they received the video from a customer of the restaurant.

The Society quickly reacted to the incident and informed the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Protection of Georgia and asked them to go to the place of the incident, study the situation, rescue the cubs and take appropriate measures against the offenders.

In a statement issued by the GSPSA, they said that the Ministry representatives were unable to find the cubs.

“As the Ministry representatives explained to us, they carried out all the necessary actions, but were unable to find the cubs, and the restaurant owners strongly denied the presence of the cubs on their territory, which, of course, is a false information,” reads the statement.

Based on the information that GSPSA has, they concluded that the cubs were either killed, displaced or were let out in the wild before the Ministry officials got to the location.

“GSPSA has a reason to believe that the cubs depicted in the video, approximately 5-6 months old, have been kept in captivity for several months and to capture them the mother bear was killed,” reads the statement. The organization also suspects that the restaurant kept the cubs to eventually kill them for meat.

GSPSA demands from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Protection to publish official information regarding the fact to answer all the questions regarding the case. They also urge them to contact the Ministry of Internal Affairs to launch an investigation into the case.

Brown bear is listed as an endangered species in the ‘Red List’ of Georgia, which makes its capture prohibited and punishable by law. Illegal hunting of bears is a criminal act - the fine for damages caused to the environment by illegal hunting/killing of a single bear stands at GEL 50 thousand.

In Georgia, poaching of bears is unfortunately very common, despite their endangered status. They are often captured and illegally held in captivity at restaurants, monasteries and other public spaces for the spectators. According to GSPSA, “frequently mother bears are killed while cubs are held captive in harsh conditions. Sometimes bear cubs end up being killed in captivity.”

According to a study conducted by IDFI (The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information) in 2017, there is a low number of animal cases that are investigated and considered in courts:

“It turns out that the Supreme Court does not keep separate statistics on administrative penalties imposed on cases of animal cruelty. As for criminal cases, in the period of ten years from 2006 to 2016, courts throughout Georgia have considered a total of 5 criminal cases related to animal cruelty. In three of these cases, the only reason why the court imposed a penalty harsher than a fine was the fact that the charges included offenses in addition to animal cruelty (murder, stealing and coercion),” reads the study.

Several animal rights defenders have called on the government to enforce the law and prevent cases of mistreatment of animals. One of the organizations that helps stray animals, ‘People’s Front of Saving Animals’ posted a video recently, showing a dog that has been severely beaten. The activist addresses the public officials to enforce the newly-toughened law on mistreatment of animals.

“There are many people like me in Georgia [who take care of injured stray animals], but how much can we endure? When will the law be enforced, which will punish the perpetrators? I address the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I address those people and governmental structures, who worked on creating the law – enforce it as it is written. Otherwise, the cruelty and hell that we live in today will never end,” says the activist.

Adopting the law and ensuring that there’s a harsh punishment for harming animals is an important step in the right direction, however it loses its meaning if there is no one being punished for committing such horrid acts against the unprotected, vulnerable animals.