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Animal Welfare Overseas
- 1. Brazil Battles Blood Sport (Farra do Boi)
- 2. Fighting to End Horse Slaughter in France
- 3. Educating India - Ghandi's School of Animal Welfare
- 4. Fighting to Survive in Sri Lanka
- 5. Saving the Wild Horses of the Bahamas
- 6. India Takes Sterilization to the Streets
- 7. Spay Day in Sayulita, Mexico
India Takes Sterilization to the Streets
Dinna Louise C. Dayao
Street dogs are an integral part of many Indian cities, where they're considered community-owned and are highly valued as neighborhood watchdogs. The animals subsist on discarded edibles from marketplaces and garbage dumps and on handouts from local shopkeepers and residents. But these semi-tame homeless animals are often plagued by disease and are sometimes rabid. Few if any are altered, and their population is at risk of growing exponentially. In an attempt to curb the population growth rate, Indian municipalities have for many years resorted to cruel methods such as poisoning, electrocution and worse.
None of these inhumane methods have effectively reduced the street dog population in Indian cities. In the city of Chennai, where data showed that the number of dogs caught increased from 25 per day in 1966 to more than 130 per day in 1995, the number of street dogs did not decrease. Likewise in Vishakhapatnam, a city in the state of Andhra Pradesh, where figures show that every year for 12 years 8,000 dogs were electrocuted, there was no decline in the street dog population. These data suggest that as long as food is plentiful in the streets, the dogs will rapidly multiply to replenish the empty biological niche, or dogs from neighboring areas will move in to fill the vacuum.
Now, thanks to the efforts of animal welfare organizations such as the Jaipur-based Help in Suffering (HIS), Indian municipal authorities are realizing that animal birth control is a lasting, long-term way to stabilize and reduce the street dog population. Since 1994, HIS has been implementing an Animal Birth Control (ABC) program (the equivalent of the United States' Trap, Neuter and Release (TNR) program for feral cats), a system of mass sterilization and rabies prevention for the street dogs. HIS's ABC program, a joint effort with Switzerland's Animaux Secours and the World Society for the Protection of Animals, involves catching, sterilizing, vaccinating and marking the animals with an identifying earmark, number tattoo and collar, and after a five-day recovery period, releasing them in the same area where they were caught.
The Results Are In
A Chennai-based animal welfare organization, Blue Cross of India,
initiated the ABC program in 1964. Blue Cross vice chairman S.
Chinny Krishna cites the results of a study funded by the
London-based Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, which concluded that the program has been a success. The
best results have been seen in Jaipur; since the program was
launched in 1994, more than 20,000 dogs - out of a total
population of about 30,000 - have completed it, resulting in a
healthier and safer street-dog population. The number of bites
inflicted on humans has decreased from 1,151 in 1996 to 220 in
1998, and rabies cases among humans in Jaipur have been reduced
to almost none over the last three years.
The success of HIS's ABC program can also be gauged by less tangible measures, such as the increase in community involvement and local government support. HIS managing trustee Christine Townend remembers when the organization met stiff resistance from the community and local government authorities. "When our staff went out to catch the dogs, they were beaten up because the people thought they were going to kill the dogs," she recalls. "And six years ago, the municipality wanted to resume poisoning the dogs."
Today, after an intensive public relations campaign and initial positive results, most of Jaipur's residents are aware of the program and its objectives, and fully support it. Because the community knows that the street dogs are rabies-free and friendly, they are no longer feared and are now valued as an integral part of the city's ecology. Even tourists have noted that street dogs in Jaipur are in far better condition than in Indian cities that aren't taking part in the ABC program. After witnessing the success of HIS's ABC program, the municipal corporation of Jaipur has begun conducting its own ABC program in another area of the city. HIS arranged for the municipal dog catchers, who use iron tongs to catch the dogs, to train with the organization's staff and learn the sack method, which reduces trauma to the dogs.
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How You Can Help To contact the Blue Cross of India, write to One Eldams Road, Chennai 600018, India, or log on to www.bluecross.org.in. |
A Marked Improvement
Thanks to the efforts made by HIS and other Indian animal welfare
organizations, the torturous killing of street dogs as a method
of population control has been stopped in major Indian cities. In
1995, the first court ruling asking a municipality to adopt
alternatives to killing was that of the Delhi High Court in
response to a lawsuit filed by Maneka Gandhi, India's animal
welfare minister, whose mission is to protect the country's
animals and educate its people about animal welfare [see
"Educating India,"]. In November 1997, the
Animal Welfare Board of India committed itself to a time frame of
seven years to achieve nationwide no-kill dog control. In
December 1997, the government of India adopted spay-and-release
as the official dog control policy of the Union Government. The
Ministry of Environment and Forests then issued its Guidelines
for Dog Population Control and Management Rules to all
municipalities and state governments. These laws will help ensure
that a friendly, rabies-free street dog population remains an
important part of Indian life.
Dinna Louise C. Dayao is a freelance writer based in Makati City, the Philippines.
© 2002 ASPCA
ASPCA Animal Watch - Fall 2002
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Spay Day in Sayulita, Mexico
