Starving dogs ate each other’s pounds alive in Mauritius

Starving dogs are left alive in a mysterious animal pound on the paradise island of Mauritius.

An expat who visited the government-run facility in December 2020 to look for his missing pet reported the “inhuman” conditions, including dogs eating and licking the feet of other dead and dying canines.

The man, who did not want to be named, said he saw cages with up to 30 or 40 animals, some of them wearing collars, as well as a staff member walking out of a room wearing a blood-covered butcher’s apron.

In a voice recording shared by MailOnline of the animal welfare group Humane Society International (HSI), the man said he was forced to leave his phone in the car before stepping into the infamous pound – known as the Mauritius Society for Animal Welfare (MSAW) .

“If the Mauritians knew what was going on in there, if they let them film, they would all be outside [protesting], ‘the man said.

A disturbing new video – filmed secretly in December and released by HSI – shows a dead dog being torn apart by a pack of skeletal dogs before attacking and eating another dog that is still alive.

It barks and howls in pain as the pack tears at its fragile limbs in the 20-second clip that was shot on the pound that has been the subject of animal cruelty allegations for years.

Several other dogs in the overcrowded cell watch blood pool around the dead and dying animals. At the end of the video, a dog with prominent ribs is seen picking at the remains of the dead dog that appears to have been left in the cell.

Starving dogs are left alive in a mysterious animal pound on the paradisiacal island of Mauritius, which has resulted in disturbing recordings and witness statements

In 2015, an MSAW employee was secretly filmed stabbing dogs in the heart with a lethal injection, despite the government abandoning its catch-and-kill policy two years earlier.

Thousands of dogs and puppies are rounded up from the streets and beaches of Mauritius each year by government dog trappers and taken to the MSAW, where they will be killed if no one comes to collect them, according to the HSI.

The group said there are an estimated 250,000 dogs on the island, most of which are owned but not neutered and free to roam the streets and beaches, breed and give birth to puppies.

The beach dogs are mostly popular, but can be seen as a nuisance to the island’s wealthy vacationers, who number nearly 150,000 Brits each year, according to the HSI.

The group previously ran a successful spay and neuter program on the island with a free clinic allegedly spaying thousands of dogs.

An expat who visited MSAW in December 2020 to look for his missing pet reported “inhuman” conditions, including dogs eating other canines’ feet and breaking blood and overcrowded cages

HSI said it had waited more than a year for an island-wide spay and neuter plan to be approved, but it had not materialized despite “repeated attempts” to contact authorities and support from a luxury beach hotel.

“The thousands of tourists who visit Mauritius each year would be shocked to learn that the pups they play with on the beach could get together in a government hellish pound and die,” said Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International / UK .

“Despite the clear success of HSI’s spay and neuter program on the island, which provides a humane way to gradually reduce the number of dogs roaming around, there appears to be a total lack of political will to really improve welfare. ”

‘MSAW has proven inadequate to regulate the lives of these vulnerable dogs who deserve to be treated with compassion and respect without starving and cannibalizing one another.

“Culls seem like a quick fix, but they are not only heartless but also hopeless in reducing the number of dogs in the long run,” said Bass.

The MSAW Pound’s policy of requiring members of the public to leave their phones and cameras behind to enter allows the Pound to operate in virtual secrecy.