Cyprus Mail 26 February 2025 - by Tom Cleaver
Four people were on Tuesday night arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of 16 donkeys in Karpasia, the Turkish Cypriot police said.
The four men, aged 54 years old, 41 years old, 39 years old, and 27 years old, were arrested after police found irregularities relating to their hunting rifles.
The guns belonging to the 54-year-old and the 27-year-old had cartridges “resembling the cartridges used in the incident”, the 39-year-old’s gun was missing its barrel, and the 41-year-old failed to present his gun to the police.
The arrests come shortly after it was confirmed that the number of donkeys who died in the mass shooting was 16 – higher than the originally counted 14.
The Tashkent nature park had said that initial findings had determined that the animals were shot and killed at close range.
Later, the Turkish Cypriot police announced on Wednesday night that the autopsies of the donkeys had been completed, and that it had been determined that all of them had been shot with a hunting rifle.
It was also revealed that the donkeys’ killers will not face jail, given that when the north’s animal welfare law was due to be updated last month, it was sent back to the ‘parliamentary’ legal committee by the ruling coalition after objections were raised over the criminalisation of cock fighting.
As such, the most severe possible punishment for the shooter or shooters, if and when they are found, is a fine of 173,876TL (€4,586).
Meanwhile, the donation drive to fund the “Karpasia donkeys management plan” aims to raise 2.28 million TL (€59,793).
Tashkent nature park director Kemal Basat said last week that that figure will be enough to provide support for a total of 300 donkeys.
Members of the public are able to symbolically adopt a Karpasia donkey through the Tashkent nature park and the Cyprus wildlife research institute by visiting bit.ly/esekkurtar.
The cost of adopting a donkey is 7,600TL (€199), with the Tashkent nature park saying that money will contribute “to improving the living conditions of these long-neglected animals in Cyprus”.
Earlier, Basat had said he will now make efforts to establish contacts with hotels and casinos with the aim of bringing in more donations, while also calling on Turkish Cypriot municipalities, universities and banks to offer donations.
“I do not think that any of these institutions will say that after all that has happened, we are not taking care of the Karpasia stray donkeys, we are not going to make a small contribution. But still, if you have the means to facilitate access and explain it, our Karpasia donkeys need your support. If you want to do something for them, the time is now,” he said.
The Karpasia donkeys management plan aims to “save” the donkeys and ensure they do not damage farmers’ crops in the region, and is jointly organised with the north’s ‘tourism ministry’ and the Turkish Cypriot Rizokarpaso and Yialousa municipality.
Basat told the Cyprus Mail that as part of the plan, the donkeys will be counted, caught, subjected to health checks and registered.
