CRUELTY

KOTA KINABALU: Starving horses at a ranch in Kinarut about 30kms from here are casting aspersions on Sabah’s tourism image.

The web blog posting indicated that 70 horses of the ranch owned by a former mayor have “no food, no water, and when they die they are dumped on a public beach” has brought a probe into the matter by authorities here.

In the posting, a British tourist claimed that agencies in Malaysia could do nothing about the alleged cruelty to the horses because the horses was owned by a political figure and had called for a boycott of visiting Malaysia until something was done.

When contacted, a Sabah Veterinary Department source said they were very aware of the situation and that its director Datuk Awang Sahak Awang Salleh had been contacted by national newspapers.

The source said they were investigating the claim after being informed by the veterinary head office in Kuala Lumpur.

The source said that officers from the Veterinary Department found eight of the about 60 odd horses, ponies and cross breeds on the private range were “actually malnourished.”

On a visit to the ranch this week, workers at the ranch prevented journalists from entering saying they were under strict order from the owner not to let anyone in.

The ranch is said to be owned by the former Mayor, Datuk Abdul Ghani Rashid. Efforts to contact him were in vain.

The Weekend Mail also had a story on its July 7-8 edition.

It also quoted deputy director, Dr Amat Kasim as saying that the horses were in a deprived condition due to lack of food.

“Most of them were thin but healthy. Due to financial constraints, the owner told me he couldn’t afford to feed the horses or treat the sick ones,” Amat was quoted as saying.

The horses were used for polo before the club was shut down.

According to our sources, Veterinary Department officers were visiting the ranch on a daily basis.

“Our immediate task was to provide the treatment for the horses as well as give supplementary feed to recondition them,” said the source.

However, he said they had no immediate plans to investigate the owner for alleged cruelty to animals as the owner had claimed that the horses were fed regularly but their conditions did not improve.

“We will look at the aspect of (alleged) cruelty at a later stage,” he said, adding that horses did not usually come under the ambit of the state veterinary department services as most horse owners used private veterinarians.

He said that there would also talk to the private veterinarian treating the horses in the due course of their investigations.