Think of animals hurt and killed on our roads

WORLD Animal Road Accident Awareness Day is held each year on October 10.

This will be the third year we have held this event, which aims to raise awareness and ultimately to help stop animals being driven to their graves.

Six hundred and thirty cats are hit by cars every single day in the UK. Twenty-five percent of these incidents will be fatal.

We challenge UK law, or lack of to be more precise, and also aim to change mind-sets and spread awareness to enlighten people on the best ways to help if they hit or find a cat on the road.

One good way we thought of doing this was to establish a national remembrance and awareness day which we will use to commemorate, promote and further mobilise action.

Our RTA awareness day will be recognised internationally and will be a period to observe the pressing issues of concern and raise awareness, as well as being a day to remember the fallen and pay tribute to lost beloved pets.

Although our campaign centres around cats, we appreciate this is an issue affecting all animals.

In Britain, annual road casualties are estimated to account for 100,000 fox deaths, 50,000 badgers, 50,000 deer, 30 million birds and hedgehogs once topped the death table with 29 percent of them being killed by cars... that was until they entered on the critically endangered list.

Based on statistical analysis of those potentially unrecorded, the realistic death rate is estimated to be around 70 million animals. Highways England states 2,143 dead animals were found on just 4,300 miles of motorway - accounting for just 1 percent of the UK’s entire road network.

Worldwide, Brazil alone recorded 1.3 million animals die every day after being struck by cars, that’s 475 million animals every single year in one country alone - about 15 animals every second.

The USA acknowledges that one million animals die every single day on roadways, including 26 million cats annually. A waste of life summed up in numbers that are hard to comprehend.

By the creation of an awareness day, we hope to coordinate a message which will be shared internationally, for all animals.

We can’t stop roads being built, or animals wandering on to them, but we can make people acknowledge what has happened and encourage they help the

animal, if not help prevent most collisions happening in the first case just by highlighting the issue and bringing it to the forefront of drivers minds.

No animal deserves to be hit by a car and left in the road alone, scared, in pain, or worse!

Our pets are somewhat lucky. With human owners who love them as family, people often say to us things such as, “owners deserve closure”, “someone will be heartbroken”, or “I would want someone to help my cat”.

Although these are very true statements, and we know the need for closure first-hand, our primary focus is the animals themselves.

Human emotion and heartbreak should be secondary to animal suffering, and we are sure people would first want someone to try all they could to help their beloved pet before considering their emotions.

But what then about wild animals who don’t have the luxury of being loved by a human, or have a nice warm bed to go back to every night with a full belly?

Do they not matter because there won’t be an upset human behind their death?

Of course not, all animals matter and every single one of them deserves a chance at survival should the worst happen.

All us drivers have a moral obligation to help all living creatures they injure while driving.

All we are asking is that, on or around October 10, you consider acknowledging World Animal Road Accident Awareness Day.

It would be hugely appreciated.

CatsMatter