Thousands protest in Turkey against plans to kill stray dogs
Thousands of people in Turkish cities have been protesting against the government's plans to kill stray dogs. There are around four million stray dogs living in the country, comprising a risk of zoonotic infections, as well as health and welfare risks for the dogs themselves. Killing, however, is inhumane and ineffective. Our sister organisation HAKİM (Animal Rights Watch Committee) calls for a culture of coexistence and compassion: “We will not allow you to capture or kill animals.”
Turkish animal rights
organisation HAKİM has been working on changing laws and regulations
in favour of animals in Türkiye since 2014. As a part of the ‘Law
for Life' umbrella organisation, they have been co-organising daily
marches protesting against the government’s plans for the
large-scale killing of stray dogs for over a month now. “The fact
that people from all walks of life come together to protect animals
and raise their voices gives us the strength to continue fighting,”
HAKİM’s Fatma Biltekin says.
The government has been trying to change legislation around stray dogs for a long time. This has been met with many protest marches over the years, causing enough pressure for the government’s plans to kill off these animals to be withdrawn until thus far. The new plans still have to be voted for. The idea − although only bits and pieces are known and there is conflicting information − seems to be to catch the dogs and put them in shelters, after which their photos will be put online for adoption. Dogs who remain unadopted for 30 days would be killed with a lethal injection, after which new dogs will be taken in and the process repeated.
False impressions
HAKİM: “Although the impression has been given that the sterilisation method has been tried but not successful, no effective efforts have been implemented by municipalities to date.” In recent years only 260,000 stray dogs were neutered annually; insufficient to shrink the overall population. And now municipalities are expected to catch 15 times this number, neuter them and get them adopted in 30 days.
Only 20% of
municipalities have shelters, and there are huge concerns with regard
to animal welfare in the often inadequate and overcrowded shelters.
Cases of torture (resulting in death) have been reported, and of
unneutered dogs being abandoned in remote areas without food. HAKİM
has no reason to believe that it will be different from this now.
The Turkish Bar
Association, representing lawyers, said that passing the bill would
imply an “unprecedented animal massacre” [2]. With four million
stray dogs, it is likely that many will not be adopted and therefore
killed. This is cruel and ineffective: it focuses only on the symptom
rather than causes. Nothing has been done to ban puppy mills, and
hardly any punishment is imposed on humans abandoning their pets and
municipalities failing to take their responsibilities. At the same
time, the costs of food and veterinary services are only increasing.
Effective and humane solutions
Affection for stray animals is widespread in Turkey, and in many areas stray dogs are taken care of by the community. “[They] have been living with us on our streets, in our homes, gardens and workplaces for centuries,” as HAKİM states. A poll showed that only 2.7% of respondents support killing the dogs [1], and a petition to stop the cruel plans has already been signed over 286 thousand times!
Nevertheless,
populations need to be decreased – which is also to the advantage
of the dogs themselves. In places where abandoned, unneutered dogs
reproduce uncontrollably, they struggle with hunger and disease and
often have to deal with violence (also from humans). In such
situations, dogs can become aggressive. Therefore, a large-scale
neutering campaign must be launched across the entire country,
starting in rural areas. Rather than locking dogs up in unsafe
shelters for adoption or killing, it would be better to collect,
neuter, vaccinate and subsequently release the dogs in their
own territory.
But focusing
exclusively on stray dogs is not enough. As long as the root causes
of dogs living on the streets − including human behaviour – are
not addressed, the stray dog population will not decrease, and the
killing will continue. Governments should listen to animal rights
organisations and learn from the International Companion Animal
Management (ICAM) Coalition, which has published an extensive guide
for humane stray dog population management in
various languages. In 2017, we organised an international
conference about stray dogs in conjunction with
our Spanish sister party PACMA,
where people from ICAM shared their expertise.
HAKİM concludes: “As
always, there are those who are in favour of life, who speak out
against this injustice, who know that the right to live free from
torture in cities or in this world is not reserved solely for
humans.”
Click
here to sign the petition, and visit the HAKİM
website for updates about this organisation’s amazing
work for animals.
Sources
[1] eksisozluk.com/img/75z5ca6c
[2] balkaninsight.com/2024/05/23/turkish-plan-to-euthanase-stray-dogs-criticised-by-activists/