Congress legislator Ajit Singh Mofar's
controversial solution to the stray dogs issue
Punjab MLAs have come up with some unique ideas on how to get rid of the state’s stray dog population. From sending the dogs to Northeast states and even China, to formulating laws to kill them, the MLAs had a variety of suggestions to offer during the Assembly session on Thursday.
June 29, 2012 - Chandigarh, India
Congress legislator Ajit Singh Mofar moved a resolution in the Punjab assembly on Thursday (June 28, 2012) seeking to tackle stray dogs in the state by sending them to China, Mizoram or Nagaland, for "whatever they do to them".
"We can make arrangements to catch the dogs, put them in jungle or zoos or maybe send them to China, Nagaland and Mizoram where they are more needed. Stray dogs are a big nuisance now, even going on an evening walk has become dangerous because of them."
The state has witnessed an increase in dog bites with an estimated 15,000 such cases reported annually.
Mofar's suggestion was accepted much to the amusement of the House. "People in China and the northeast have their own ways of using the dogs. We cannot be really bothered with that. We have to solve our problem first. Stray dogs are killing children, attacking the elderly," Mofar told TOI.
But Mofar's leader in the house, Sunil Jakhar, disagreed with him. "Dog is considered to be a man's best friend and even Mahatma Gandhi felt so and advocated care for stray dogs. Saying things like these trivializes the issue and is not in good taste at all. I am personally against this kind of attitude," he told TOI.
The resolution has angered animal rights groups. "This is an inhuman thought and completely against ethics. Dogs have a right to live. If the state government attempts any thing on these lines, we will take them to the court," People for Animals president Saurabh Gupta said.
Ruling Shiromani Akali Dal legislator D S Cheema also opposed the suggestion. "There are scientific means of controlling dog population. We should explore advanced techniques now available and sterilize these dogs and put them back in their own territory."
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
About the issue
There are more than 30 million stray dogs in India, in urban as well as rural areas. A good number of these dogs in the urban setting are more community dogs rather than feral. Stray dogs is used to refer to lost and abandoned pets or others that had been socialized to humans before taking to the free-ranging life, and feral refer to those who have lived all their lives apart from people.
Most free-roaming dogs belong to an ancient canine race known as the pariah dog, which has existed all over Asia and Africa ever since human beings started living in settlements. They are scavengers–that is, they live on garbage created by humans. In India the breed has existed for perhaps 14,000 years or more. In addition to scavenging, they are widely kept as pets by rural and urban slum households.
Part of the urban stray population consists of mongrels or mix-breeds–descended from pure-breed dogs that have been allowed to interbreed with pariahs.
The size of stray dog populations always corresponds to the size and character of the human population of the area. Urban India has two features which create and sustain stray dog populations:
1) Large amounts of exposed garbage, which provide an abundant source of food.
2) A huge population of slum and street-dwellers, who often keep the dogs as free-roaming pets.
Mumbai, for example, has over 12 million human residents, of whom over half are slum-dwellers. At least 500 tons of garbage remain uncollected daily. Therefore, conditions are perfect for supporting a particularly large population of stray dogs.
Source
Most free-roaming dogs belong to an ancient canine race known as the pariah dog, which has existed all over Asia and Africa ever since human beings started living in settlements. They are scavengers–that is, they live on garbage created by humans. In India the breed has existed for perhaps 14,000 years or more. In addition to scavenging, they are widely kept as pets by rural and urban slum households.
Part of the urban stray population consists of mongrels or mix-breeds–descended from pure-breed dogs that have been allowed to interbreed with pariahs.
The size of stray dog populations always corresponds to the size and character of the human population of the area. Urban India has two features which create and sustain stray dog populations:
1) Large amounts of exposed garbage, which provide an abundant source of food.
2) A huge population of slum and street-dwellers, who often keep the dogs as free-roaming pets.
Mumbai, for example, has over 12 million human residents, of whom over half are slum-dwellers. At least 500 tons of garbage remain uncollected daily. Therefore, conditions are perfect for supporting a particularly large population of stray dogs.
Source
Canine ABC program:
The necessity of it and what has to be done
Pubished by the Animal Welfare Board of India (Ministry of Environment & Forests, Govt. of India)
March 26, 2012
Excerpt: The Animal Welfare Board of India (henceforth AWBI) has taken up the implementation of the animal birth control (henceforth ABC) program for canines on a national scale with two objectives—to end the presence of stray dogs on roads and public spaces and free India from the incidence of rabies by 2020. Under this program, stray dogs are picked up, neutered, vaccinated against rabies and released in the respective areas from where they had been captured.
The ABC program constitutes the only effective and humane method of controlling stray dog populations. In its report, Technical Report Series 931, WHO’s Expert Consultation on Rabies, which met in Geneva from 5 to 8 October 2004, states:
“Since the 1960s, ABC programs coupled with rabies vaccination have been advocated as a method to control urban street male and female dog populations and ultimately human rabies in Asia. The rationale is to reduce the dog population turnover as well as the number of dogs susceptible to rabies and limit aspects of male dog behavior (such as dispersal and fighting) that facilitate the spread of rabies. The culling of dogs during these programs may be counterproductive as sterilized, vaccinated dogs may be destroyed”
Source