Loomakaitse ja inimeste suhtumine loomadesse 1930. aastate Eestis

The first animal protection societies in the Baltic provinces of the Tsarist Russian Empire were established in the 1860s. Members were mostly Baltic Germans. Data on the first indigenous Estonian society dates from the 1890s. In the 1930s, the population of Estonia was 1,061,000 and the number of domestic animals was 2,516,500. Animals were protected by § 276 of the Criminal Code (`the ungrounded torturing of animals is punishable') and national law regulated hunting, slaughter and transport to slaughter-houses. Two counties and eleven towns established animal protection by-laws at local authority level. In 1935, 22 animal protection societies were active in Estonia, with 4,500 adult members, and many young members; 18 societies belonged to the Estonian Union of Animal Protection Societies, founded in 1929. In 1935, the Union started to publish a periodical (planned as bi-monthly) `The Estonian Animal Protector'. Most people had lived in towns for less than one generation, so attitudes were similar to those in the country. There were some differences to the countryside. Firstly, town animals were gratuitously tortured without reason and secondly, town people were more contemptuous of animals. Direct violence, such as the cutting out of a tongue of a cat, was also recorded in towns, but not in the countryside. This apparent difference of behaviour may be as a result of a lack of information about the situation of pets in the country. In conclusion, in the 1930s, animal protection was respected and successful in Estonia, and animal protection societies' members had strong support from local authorities