Our organization has received many complaints in recent months about improper keeping of wild animals in some restaurants in Kosovo.
Due to these complaints, we have started a monitoring action of restaurants that keep wild or exotic animals, to see the conditions in which the animals are kept.
In the restaurant “Liqeni i Mjellmave”, a badger is being kept in conditions way below acceptable standards. The badger in such a space experiences discomfort, distress, and suffering. The keeping conditions do not meet the requirements of the “Administrative Instruction no. 01/2012 on the conditions of keeping, the way of marking and identification of protected wild animals in captivity”. Our organization has requested that this administrative instruction is amended urgently to completely ban the keeping of wild animals in restaurants for entertainment/recreational purposes in Kosovo unless animals need rescuing and cannot be released back to the wild. Wild animals have no place in isolated spaces and even less in such cages. 🦡❌
We have contacted the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning, and Infrastructure (MESPI) to notify them of these cases and have received confirmation from them that they will deal with the cases we have reported up to now. We have asked the Ministry to verify if these facilities have the necessary licenses to keep these animals, as provided by law. 🏛️📋
We have also written to the restaurant and requested that they urgently address this issue by significantly improving the living conditions to meet the standards set by law. In case of illegal possession or catching, the animals must be confiscated by the relevant authorities, according to legal authorizations.
Our organization has recently made a request to the Ministry and its relevant agencies to get the complete list of restaurants, pet shops or any other entities that keep wild and/or exotic animals, their licenses, and the type of animals they keep. In addition, we asked the Ministry to show for what purposes those animals are kept (consumption or something else).
We ask the community not to support any entity that keeps wild animals for entertainment/recreational purposes and especially those that break the law and disregard the full welfare of the animals. Any decision to support these activities is a vote for the kind of world we should not live in. Let us choose compassion and respect for all living beings. 🌍❤️🐾
