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Fri, Feb 10 2012
Castrate and return
Photo: wikipedia
Sofia municipality's "Castrate and Return" programme, aimed at tackling the city's interminable problem of stray dogs, has now been operating for one month.
The method was suggested by the World Health Organisation as apparently the only efficient and permanent solution available.
Mutts are caught and inoculated against rabies. Their ears are marked with a V sign; they are tattooed, disinfected, castrated and then returned to their 'manor'. Aggressive, or terminally ill animals, are put to sleep. The operation is conducted by a task force set up by the municipality, which works alongside the public.
As well as being castrated, dogs are also picked up again at a later date and given a second anti-rabies jab.
The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) had conducted a survey in 2007 in which it estimated that there were 11 136 stray dogs in the capital city. In 2009, their number was pegged at 8 538, or a 23 per cent drop in population. The BAS report also indicates that in 2005, Sofia's stray dog population was approaching 20 000.
In parallel with castration, sanitation and inoculation, the task force is entrusted with setting up large kennels in Mladost, Nadezdha and other outlying Sofia boroughs where the problem is at its most severe.
Two German centres currently operate in Sofia, in Studentski Grad and Hladilnika, where 1500 dogs are castrated annually.
The method was suggested by the World Health Organisation as apparently the only efficient and permanent solution available.
Mutts are caught and inoculated against rabies. Their ears are marked with a V sign; they are tattooed, disinfected, castrated and then returned to their 'manor'. Aggressive, or terminally ill animals, are put to sleep. The operation is conducted by a task force set up by the municipality, which works alongside the public.
As well as being castrated, dogs are also picked up again at a later date and given a second anti-rabies jab.
The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) had conducted a survey in 2007 in which it estimated that there were 11 136 stray dogs in the capital city. In 2009, their number was pegged at 8 538, or a 23 per cent drop in population. The BAS report also indicates that in 2005, Sofia's stray dog population was approaching 20 000.
In parallel with castration, sanitation and inoculation, the task force is entrusted with setting up large kennels in Mladost, Nadezdha and other outlying Sofia boroughs where the problem is at its most severe.
Two German centres currently operate in Sofia, in Studentski Grad and Hladilnika, where 1500 dogs are castrated annually.
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Chain reaction
Are the mutts to blame?
Targovishte starts neutering programme for stray dogs
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Balchik resident adopts stray dogs
A British national who moved to the Black Sea town of Balchik from Somerset in south-west England is setting up a scheme to encourage the town's residents to adopt stray dogs, according to British local newspaper The Weston Mercury.
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To Mikael. I have just signed a petition of 2000 people who are boycotting holidaying Bulgaria because of the barbaric and inhumane way that dogs are butchered in Bulgaria......works both ways
Bad idea. Despite people's kindness, stray animals suffer and perish.
good idea! Stray animals can be dangerous in many ways. They also ruin property.
Bloody idiots that are all ignorant cat lovers. Year by year their unsterilized pets continue to reproduce freely and make overpopulation of unwanted stray cats. In fact, decades ago the real cat control was concessioned illegally by municipality to the bunchers!!!
And the cats too are totally out of Control!!
But the bloody idiots keep feeding them so they stay!
The strays need to be put down, people to stop feeding them. Bulgarians just don't seem to get it.
"The method was suggested by the WHO..."
Sofia accepted a method, but no strategy. It means to reduce population reproduction by increasing percentage of sterilized owned dog population. While over 100,000 owned dogs (according to Ekoravnovesie's chief Miroslav Naidenov these are 200,000) remain entire, Sofia stays without "efficient and permanent solution available."
http://icam-coalition.org/downloads/Humane_Dog_Pop
If you kill them, then more strays arrive in from the countryside. This is the only way forward, to gradually reduce the population but it has to go hand in hand with reducing the access to a food supply, i.e. people stop feeding them and good litter control
four mutts went after an elderly woman in Hipodruma borrough two nights ago. thankfully, there were some lads having a beer at a park bench. had the lads not intervened, the lady would have been in serious trouble. some people however are not as lucky.
Just kill them all already
11 136 stray dogs it just nasty. No one knows like Bulgaria how to make turists never want to come back to Bulgaria.
it would be nice to have something here in bourgas and the surrounding areas where there are a lot of stray dogs
When are you starting in Varna & the coastel resorts along the black sea.