Currently, there is a huge outrage in
India over the increasing population of stray dogs, increasing dog bite cases
and deaths due to rabies. Supreme Court of India has taken Suo moto cognizance
of this problem in Delhi after which hell has broken loose and from media to
common people, everyone is discussing this subject. Here are few of the points
I want to mention about this issue.
Disclaimer: I love stray dogs,
especially pups and if you read my blogs, you would know; otherwise also it is
fine.
1. There are many people who are
saying that they do not have any problem with stray dogs and stray dogs have
never bitten them. But it is important to note that the most common victims of
stray dogs are small children, old men and women, poor people, ragpickers,
maidservants and beggars. We need to think about welfare of these vulnerable
groups of people instead of our own feelings about this issue.
2. Population of stray dogs increases
because of easy availability of food on the streets. India is plagued with
general lack of hygiene in public spaces and hence it has created this
situation where there is huge quantity of food is available for dogs, cats,
insects, pests, etc on the roadsides and in the garbage thrown everywhere
around.
3. Due to the above reason, people
who go out on the streets to feed stray dogs are actually being foolish. It is
an invitation for stray dogs to exist in areas where they do not find enough
garbage. If dogs are dependent on their artificial feeding, what will the dogs
do on the days these people do not go out to feed the dogs?
4. Because of easy availability of
garbage and leftover food, dogs’ population is expected to keep increasing
exponentially. It is important to understand that stray dog population will
increase “exponentially”, just like any species population. And hence, a point
will come when things go out of hand and mass culling of dogs will be needed.
Hence, it is important to manage this problem before things go out of hand.
5. Municipal corporations in many
cities spend lakhs and crores of rupees doing forced sterilization of dogs,
which is expensive; since the same money could rather be used for better
purposes, like feeding homeless people or educating children of the poor. No
amount of sterilization will be able to control dogs’ population if it keeps
rising exponentially. 20 years of population control through sterilization can
be undone in 5 years if sterilization is stopped. Hence, sterilization is not a
sustainable or permanent solution to this menace.
6. Many people are calling for pet
keepers to adopt stray dogs, but this is not going to be widely popular because
people keep dogs of foreign breeds for status-symbol purpose and most of them
won’t keep local stray dogs because the purpose they keep dogs is not for
charity but for amusement and companionship.
7. Since the matter has reached the
Supreme Court which has already ordered all stray dogs to be captured and
sheltered, everyone should cooperate, and municipal corporation of Delhi should
obey the order religiously and leave not a single stray dog on the streets.
8. Govt should make a law that if
anyone abandons their pet dogs on the street, the dog owners will be sent to
jail.
9. Municipal corporations all across
India should use mix of sheltering and sterilization of dogs to reduce the
population of stray dogs to zero.
10. After stray dogs population will
be reduced to zero, population of stray cats will rise, and municipal
corporations must ensure good cleanliness of localities in order to avoid us
getting into a similar stray cats’ catastrophe.
- Rahul Tiwary
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