EDITOR, The Tribune.

This letter is prompted by things that other people, mostly my wife, show me on Facebook.

I don’t do Facebook, but I am impressed by what social media can achieve – so much good, and so much evil – like a recent video of a pit bull killing another dog.

The Bahamas is blessed with charities and each seems directed at specific needs of our people, so I would like to talk about the Bahamas Humane Society.

In case you didn’t know it, the Humane Society is the oldest charity in the Bahamas.

It has been helping PEOPLE since 1924, but its detractors would have you believe that the BHS only helps animals, which is nowhere near the truth.

Yes, the BHS focuses on animals, but everything they do, for any animal, benefits humans and this has been true from day one.

Take horses. Go back to when the principal means of travel was on horseback, or by horse-drawn vehicles. The first time I landed my plane on Rum Cay, Constable Bain came to the airstrip, riding a donkey.

Big animals have helped people for thousands of years, as have small pets – birds, cats, dogs, rabbits, need I go on? EVERYTHING the Humane Society does to help animals helps the people who live here.

Sometimes, the help is direct – as when the BHS donates food to people who cannot fully afford to care for their animals but would be distressed if their pets were to starve to death; or to a horse owner who lets a horse starve to death, while the food lies unused.

At other times, the help may be indirect – good examples of this are the spay-and-neuter programmes, which have reduced the number of stray dogs and cats that infested our streets.

Each of us is better off without those strays. You don’t need to be an animal lover to know that many, many people, rich and poor, are devoted to their animals. The rich can afford private vets, the poor depend upon the Humane Society to continue helping them – as the society has been doing, every day, for 94 years, this month.

PAUL C. ARANHA

Lyford Cay,

Nassau,

April 7, 2018.