Animal sections at Souq Waqif
Have you been to visit the animal souqs and been upset by the inhumane condition of the animals staying there, most particularly the conditions of the animals being sold at Souq Waqif? You now have a venue to lodge your complaint!
The inhumane conditions outlined in a Gulf Times article published earlier this year, http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=409273...
The Ministry of Environment's Animal Resourses Department is asking people to write to them and share their account of the conditions down at the animal souq. Help Cats in Qatar to stop the inhumane way these animals are treated & raise your voice. Write to, Dr Mahmoud Hassan at [email protected] and help us make pawsitive changes today.
If you have had a chance to go down and see the conditions for yourself first hand and were able to take some photos please share them as well as your experience and help us make pawsitive changes!
Nomerci - to an extent, yes ;o)
baldrick, there is a difference though. Humans can clean around them, take care of themselves, animals can't ,they depend solely on their keepers.Plus , the workers have decided to come here, the animals haven't.I intend in no way to play down the dreadful situation some workers are in.
Fubar, you'll find pretty much the same in the Industrial area ...
Mindset the problem, nonmerci. But money makes it all the more embarrassing. Get off the 5 star airline, check in to your 5 star hotel, drive around the 'richest country in the world' with the 'fastest growing economy' only to discover right across the road from the wonderful I M Pei museum a souq full of pitiful animals in a disgusting, stinking alley that is part of the busiest tourist destination in Qatar. Not the best look for a country seeking to be a tourism hub.
redtreble, money has nothing to do with it...mindset has.
People talk like helping animals and helping humans are mutually exclusive. They aren't.Qatar has one of the highest GDP levels in the world. There are simply no excuses for the dreadful conditions in the Souk.
i can't believe you guys, you love animals more than your own kind? i'm sorry but i do love animals too and have tried to help them on my my own little way but there are more serious stuff than this one. hey, those are petshops, it's normal to see poor conditions of animals especially those from the wild. i think better to concentrate on stopping importing this animals. people here don't know how to take care of them. they are just toys for them...
LOL how can you expect the authorities to do something about it when they can't even have a decent implementation of laws on human(laborers and housemaids that is) everyday i see abuses on blue collar workers in the hospital and the police is not even bothering to do something about it other than write and document it.okay, i'm with you, let's all go to souq and demonstrate in front of the sellers, don't mind the humans plight, mind it later...
hope you take your own advice and stick to the topic of animals...
Thank you!
If you don't feel there is anything wrong with the Souq then don't write an email. But please respect the fact that there are hundreds of us that DO want the animal's in-humane conditions to change, and do see them as a higher priority to what they are currently are and will continue to fight for them. We all realise that change in Qatar can be a slow process but hopefully we can help speed things along!!
There is a sense of alarm here. The animals in the souq are in danger... always have been and always will be as long as unscrupulous people are allowed to import sick and diseased animals.
As long as there is no regulation with regards to how these animals are imported and kept, they will be brought into the country in plane loads and live out their short miserable lives in a tiny cage, with minimal food and water - being a photo opportunity for some bratty kid that wants to pull its ears and tail, praying that someone will come and rescue them... and when someone does - it just means more money for the unscrupulous shop keeper that goes off and buys another batch of sick animals to sell to unsuspecting buyers.
The vets in this country make a fortune out of sick animals bought at the souq - which end up dying anyway.
So many people are dismayed and disgusted by the souq's animal section - its time now for something to be done - finally, the animal rescue groups in Qatar have been heard.
My intention isn't to scare anyone - but to inform them of the facts and the risks. As I said in my post, neither ringworm nor conjunctivitis is dangerous and are both easily treated, but surely it's better to avoid getting them at all?
you make scare the people!!! The rinkworm is common infection which can have also house animal living in the garden (my dog got them 2 months ago) . Hope you agreed with me and Fubar that we need improve but without create no-sense alarm.
Ciao
One of the biggest problems there is the fact that everyone goes straight in and touches all the animals. I go there regularly to see what's going on and everytime I go, there are always at least 2 or 3 animals with ringworm.
Ringworm is a highly contagious fungal infection which is transferable to humans and other animals through contact. Although not dangerous and easily treated, it is annoying and can take a while to clear up, therefore risking being spread to other humans and animals. Children are normally the first to run over to the animals and touch them, and then go over and touch another. They could quite easily spread ringworm to 10 or 15 different animals whilst they are at the Souq and then take it home and spread it to the family as well.
Conjunctivitis can also be found in many of the persian-typed cats and kittens and this is also transferable to humans through direct contact. Again, not particularly dangerous and easily treated, but I'd still rather not catch it!
The animals are kept in small cages, with little to no food or water, out in the heat and are constantly poked, prodded and patted by everyone who goes past which is incredibly stressful. I've lost count of the number of times I've personally seen small children being handed bunnies and kittens that they then drop onto the concrete because they are scared of them!
There are also a number of animals there that are CITES registered animals and therefore must have CITES certificates to prove that they were obtained and imported legally. None ever do.
There are many things that are far from perfect with the Souq, and I hope that with enough emails being sent to Dr Hassan, maybe they will realise that things will need to change soon.
unfortunately "our" Government has many other things to do at the moment; that's not excuse but is the reality. Surely the arrangement of the pet area is in the list of the things to improve but in the second time. Guys (specially the new arrived) needed 2-3 years then you guys understand the arabic style ........shuay shuay!!!
Ciao
that's nice Pilgram. Thanks for the suggestion.
Ciao
Very true. It's a small country with one main souq and one main pet area. I don't see how hard it could be for some decent standards to be devised and implemented for a single pet souq.
and give time to "our" Government to taking care of the several concerns of the population. Guys don't forget that Qatar is a small Country, yes is growing very fast and for this reason something going wrong so wait and everything will be fine. In 2000 no TV satellite, separeted ice skating (3rd floor of city center for the women only), no bus etc etc...today we have almost everything. Shuay shuay guys.
Ciao
You let your children touch those disease ridden animals Bral! ICK! You'd better make sure they don't have ring worm or worse.
to improve!!!
Ciao
Even if we assume that no one cares about the welfare of the actual animals (and personally I think it’s still awful, but much improved from when it first opened) it is still embarrassing for me to take friends visiting from other countries to that part of the souq. Qatar spends so long telling people that it’s a big player on the world stage, and everything they do is top notch and glitzy and amazing, and then tourists end up at the souq, distressed at the sight of animals confined in cages that are too small for them, cats and dogs panting in the heat because they have no water, and other birds sitting in their own crap because their cages aren’t clean. The pet souq is a disgrace to Qatar, not just because it shows how inhumanely people here treat animals, but because it confirms in the eyes of tourists that this is a backward country that thinks it’s amusing to sell little birds soaked in food coloring. I don’t know what the Ministry of Environment is busy doing if it hasn’t bothered to pop down to the only pet souq in the country.
is an other zoo very good.
jjj75 the topic is not if the birds are fake or cramped hot dog..........but the in-humane condition!!!
Ciao
bral1960
zoos themselves are probably no good thing either. I really do wonder bral, if you are going to the same souq as everyone else. fake dyed birds, cramped hot dogs, last time I was there, there were birds who obviously either had the mange or were pulling their feathers out in frustration and boredom (they do that when they don't have enough space to move around).
TIERGARTEN SCHONNBRUN ZOO in Vienne (Austria) is the best.
Ciao
Lp lol at serengeti :P
at QAWS? Iwe where there (my cousin working there) then decided to brought the puppy from the souk!!! Think why? We appreciate the people working (even my wife goes there sometimes) there to help the abandoned animal of Qatar but there the condition are very bad.....do you count how many dogs are in half square meter cage?
Ciao
I wonder if you really where there and see the animal section!!! Most of you like only to speak badly about Qatar Culture or Qatary behaviour!!! In 2000 I arrived here and we were one of the few expat bring a dog in Qatar so when I bring him to the cornice everybody looks at my dog as an alien so what do you expecting by them?!?!?!? The legend says that a dog bite Mohamed when he was 13 years! Have you been in Kenya, Souih Africa, in India, in Maleysia and even in some my European country? Yes we can improve it but what you describe looks like a "NAZI LAGER". Try to be there for real and bring your child they will enjoy to play with all the animals there. Think three times before said such thinks.
Ciao
I wonder if you really where there and see the animal section!!! Most of you like only to speak badly about Qatar Culture or Qatary behaviour!!! In 2000 I arrived here and we were one of the few expat bring a dog in Qatar so when I bring him to the cornice everybody looks at my dog as an alien so what do you expecting by them?!?!?!? The legend says that a dog bite Mohamed when he was 13 years! Have you been in Kenya, Souih Africa, in India, in Maleysia and even in some my European country? Yes we can improve it but what you describe looks like a "NAZI LAGER". Try to be there for real and bring your child they will enjoy to play with all the animals there. Think three times before said such thinks.
Ciao
Pretty dreadful - I now avoid this part of the souk. remember what Ghandi once said about how you can judge a country by the way they treat their animals
BullS*&t,like most things in this town,a bloody facade for 'acceptance' rather than action instead of mere words...a question if i may,souq Waqif isn't hidden away in some secret location is it?...everyone knows where it is ESPECIALLY the folks up @ the "Ministry of Environment-Animal resources dept." that place has been there for some years now & the animals have been treated badly from the start,why were they not raided & shut down years ago? What is stopping the MoENV from sending an inspection team there & shutting the place down immediately for obvious multiple violations that completely disregard proper conditions for those animals? & souq Waqif is supposed to be the "tourist showpiece" of this place,just sums it up really...Who are the people employed @ this MoENV animal resources dept.? Are they people that have even a level of awareness let alone a level of concern for the plight of animals?
ab552,you are obviously someone that is both aware & concerned but i wouldn't pin too much hope on this MoENV dept. especially if it's staffed mostly by locals like the rest of that place...concern for animals isn't in their culture,they view pups & kittens as playthings rather than living beings so i wouldn't have very high hopes from that lot if i were you...forget about doing something themselves,they're not even willing to make small concessions for people that do care & give of their time & money to look after animals that have been abused & abandoned mostly by their own people & other ignoramus' of the same ilk...so the good folks @ QAWS have been requesting these guys for YEARS now to grant them a charitable organization status so they can legally receive donations & these morons are unwilling to grant it,so really good luck with the folks at MoENV...
@ bral,one must first be aware of what inhuman conditions actually are & what the right conditions for keeping animals are before making ignorant statements...comprehende?...
If the ministry does not know what is happening in one of the busiest places in Doha..they got a real issue
I think bral was describing the Serengeti!
bral, you must live in a parallel universe....
several times and never see in-humane conditions. The cats and small dogs are free (not in cage) and everybody can take in the hands (my daughter is the first to do it), the birds are even free to play with customers and you can take photos with them on your shoulders; the small rabbits are not in cage and you can play with them. Only the big dogs are in the cage for proper reason so no complain about the bad conditions at all.
Ciao
It's upsetting, but what do you expect in a society that allows such abusive treatment of human beings? Animals don't have a chance.