Bangalore's War against Street Dogs

Joellen Secondo is a U.S-based animal activist focusing on animal issues in India. She has frequently tipped me off to quality stories, and this marks her first guest post for An Animal-Friendly Life.

Bangalore's War against Street Dogs
By Joellen Secondo

Following two fatal dog attacks on children in January and February, there has been an intense and violent backlash against the street dogs of Bangalore in India.

While the death of a child is tragic under any circumstances, given the number of dogs in Bangalore approximately 56,000 and the number of people over 6 million of these incidents are exceedingly rare.

This past week, city officials ordered dogs to be rounded up and brought to shelters. Many were kept in vans for 24 hours without food or water. Some 800 stray dogs have been dumped at local animal shelters. Over 200 dogs caught by the city were deemed diseased or vicious and were killed by injecting chemicals directly into their hearts or clubbing (as reported in a interview with a city employee published by Mid-Day newspaper, which also published a photo of piled-up dead dogs). Other dogs have been killed by angry mobs in their neighborhoods.

Due to a dearth of professional dog catchers, city garbage cleaners had been given the task of bringing in 1,000 dogs a day, but their lack of experience resulted in abusive handling of dogs as well as an inability to meet their quota.



Local newspapers report that the catching and culling will resume in ten days, after the city builds pounds where the dogs can be permanently housed (it is unclear how many or which dogs will be kept there).

The number of dogs killed is tiny compared to the numbers killed in China recently. But what is particularly upsetting is that, up until now, India's progress in stray dog and rabies control has been a model for other countries. The current culling mandate is a foolish step backward and may set a precedent for other municipalities.

Most dogs in India are free roaming. They are community dogs, who live outdoors and belong to neighborhoods or persons who live or work on the streets.

The management of street dog populations in India is critical, not because of the possibility of fatal attacks by street dogs, but because of rabies. India has more human fatalities from rabies than any country in the world, and virtually all are the result of dog bites.

As stated by the World Health Organization, an animal birth control/anti-rabies program (ABC/AR) is the most effective (and most humane) way to: keep dog populations down; prevent dogs from biting (since mating and protection of litters can lead to aggression); and, subsequently, prevent rabies in humans. For 100 years, street dogs were routinely killed in India. Following the passage in 1960 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, this has been outlawed; ABC/AR has now become national policy for street dog and rabies control. Now there are calls for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to be set aside so that all the dogs in Bangalore may be killed.

In many Indian cities, as in Bangalore, animal organizations catch street dogs, spay/neuter and vaccinate them against rabies (putting a notch in one ear to signify that the dog has been sterilized) and then release the dogs back to their original neighborhoods. Since dogs are territorial, they prevent new, unsterilized dogs from moving in.

As proof of the efforts of animal welfare organizations, most of the dogs caught in the recent round-up had been sterilized.

According to Savitha Nagabhushan of Compassion Unlimited Plus Action, one of Bangalore's most active animal welfare organizations,

Stray dogs are a consequence and not a cause of civic problems. The cause is really:
a) The exposed meat shops and their wastes.

b) General garbage piles uncleared.

c) Migrant construction workers who keep dogs and then abandon them when they move on.

d) Uncaring pet owners abandoning their dogs.

e) Unscrupulous breeders abandoning weak and unsold dogs.


It is quite clear that dogs are not the problem, but are victims of humans, of the general population and civic authorities. One incident, however tragic, cannot justify the slaughter of thousands of dogs.

Even though the directive is to capture feral/ferocious/diseased dogs, at the ground level, the catchers will catch only the docile, sterilized, harmless dogs to meet their quota. This will only increase the influx of untreated dogs. This kill the dogs mania is only making the problem worse.

Read her full statement here.

The suburban area in which the two children were killed was cited in 2002 by an animal welfare NGO as high-risk due to numerous illegal butcher shops, which dumped meat waste onto the streets. Dogs gravitated to this highly prized food source. When the butcher shops were closed or penalized for littering, bribes to officials had them quickly back in business.

The government provides some funds for ABC/AR programs to five NGO's responsible for five areas of Bangalore. The area of the dog attacks does not have an ABC/AR program.

The Hindu, one of India's leading newspapers, reported on March 9 that T.N. Chaturvedi, the Governor of Karnataka, castigated city officials in Bangalore and in nearby Mysore for ordering a dog culls, calling it a knee-jerk reaction and requesting a more scientific approach to the problem.

Having spent time in India with animal welfare organizations, I can attest to the dedication and hard work of their staff (who, in many cases, are not even paid). Now, however, all of their efforts and a great deal of the expense that has gone into the sterilization and vaccination of dogs is being undone by voices calling for the killing of street dogs.

Please write to ask authorities to conduct proper waste management and expand the ABC/AR programs. Emails can be sent to the Chief Minister of Karnataka (Karnataka is the state where the city Bangalore is located) and the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike Commissioner, K. Jairaj (this is the city commissioner)

Chief Minister, Government of Karnataka at cm@kar.nic.in

BMP Commissioner: K Jairaj at commissioner@bmponline.org

Letters to the editor can be sent to:

The Hindu at letters@thehindu.co.in

Deccan Herald at editor@deccanmail.com



Photo courtesy of Savitha Nagabhushan, CUPA