Dog menace: Animal protection group suggest birth control programme to Amritsar MC
In light of the recent incident in which stray dogs mauled a 4-year-old boy to death in Tarn Taran, the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisation (FIAPO) has held the arrangements of Amritsar municipal corporation to prevent risk of stray dog menace as inadequate.
In light of the recent incident in which stray dogs mauled a 4-year-old boy to death in Tarn Taran, the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisation (FIAPO) has held the arrangements of Amritsar municipal corporation to prevent risk of stray dog menace as inadequate.
The country’s apex animal rights’ organisation has asked the Amritsar municipal corporation (MC) to implement a large-scale animal birth control (ABC) programme to provide a long-term solution of the stray dog menace.
On behalf of the federation, Swati podder, communication officer (digital) has written a letter to MC commissioner Sonali Giri in which she stated that the only scientific and successful method of resolving the human-animal conflict and prevent dog bites and rabies is by ensuring a rigorous animal birth control programme.
“Under this programme, street dogs are caught, surgically made sterile and then left at their original territories after being administered a preventive shot of rabies. There are many success stories of the impact of this programme; especially in cities like Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai,” said Podder.
She pointed that the ABC programme currently undertaken by the civic body here is inadequately small and thus completely ineffective. “Research shows that at least 70% of the dogs need to be sterilised for the programme to have an impact, whereas the current coverage of the AMC is nowhere near that,” she said.
Referring to ruling of the Supreme Court, the letter read, “It is the duty and obligation of the Animal Welfare Board to see that the civic bodies follow the rules and regulations with all seriousness. It is also the duty of all municipal corporations to provide infrastructure as mandated in the statute and the rules. Any kind of laxity while carrying out statutory obligations is not countenanced in law.”
“Relocation of dogs is not only illegal, but also causes a dog- vacuum in that location which gives way to the untreated non vaccinated dogs who are not familiar with the locality and often bark at people crossing by to mark and claim their new territory. It also inhibits from keeping a check on the number of sterilised dog count in the city,” she wrote in the letter.