AFTER the end of the festive season, Sofia residents were quickly brought back to the prosaic mundane life in the city.
In the course of a few days at the end of the previous week, two of the major problems of Sofia, refuse and street dogs, occupied the front pages of the newspapers and led television news bulletins.
A 34-year-old woman, Elena Cholova, was attacked and bitten all over by a berserk pack of street dogs while doing her morning jogging at the Sports Academy stadium in the Studentski Grad area in Sofia. The incident sparked serious debate and small-scale immediate actions.
By January 10, the municipal unit in charge of street dogs, Ekoravnovesie, has taken care of the pack of more than 20 dogs in Studentski Grad but the problem remained in other parts of the city.
The head of the environment commission at the municipality, Nelly Manova, said that a zoo police unit would be set up within a few months to control both street and domestic dogs.
Manova also promised that within a month Ekoravnovesie would start a large-scale removal of street dogs from the city.
She said, in a change to previous policy, zoo inspectors, which will be accompanied by the new zoo police, will ignore the signs, collars and ear markings that the animals are safe, and will take them to the dog pound where they will be killed after 14 days.
Manova said that the only reason which had stopped the municipality from taking such steps so far were the militant animal lovers who were accusing the municipality of inhumane treatment of dogs and were physically attacking Ekoravnovesie officials.
According to Manova, the municipality will take steps to stop people adopting animals from the pound and then releasing them back on the streets.
Eco organisations responded that in the past six years the municipality had spent three million leva on killing dogs, instead of sterilising them. According to the dog lovers, between 1990 and 2002 a total of 47 725 street dogs were killed, in 2004 the total was 8 453 dogs killed, while there were a further other 10 000 to
12 000 dogs roaming the streets of Sofia.
The eco organisations accused Sofia mayor Stefan Sofianski of not carrying out his 2003 election promises and not applying the four-year programme for solving the dog problem through castration.
In the meantime the Supreme Administrative Prosecution (SAP) announced that it would start an inquiry into the activities of all mayors across the country regarding the dog problem. The prosecution will check the legality of actions and the application of Veterinary Activities Act and the 1948 Ordinance on Combating Rabies.
Sofianski got the attention of prosecutors because of the refuse problem as well.
The Sofia City Prosecution (SCP) started an investigation into the legality of the city refuse dump in Suhodol.
The prosecution started the inquiry after, from January 7, residents of the Suhodol area blocked the road to the city refuse dump across the ring road from their apartment buildings.
The Suhodol residents demanded the immediate discontinuation of the use of the dump site and claimed that in 2001 Sofianski had promised them that it would be used only until the end of 2004.
The protesters, who were guarding the blockade in shifts and in the company of their children, claimed that the dump site was posing health hazards, was dangerous for the environment and smelt terrible.
Officials from the Health Ministry and the Environment and Waters Ministry said that the dump site was ecologically safe and could be used for another year.
The roadblock caused serious problems throughout the city as refuse collection vans could not unload at the site and the city dumpsters started overflowing with refuse, which was carried around by homeless people and street dogs.
Hygiene experts warned that the warm weather will speed up the decomposition of the uncollected refuse and might cause a serious epidemic in Sofia.
City officials visited the roadblock on more than one occasion trying to reach an agreement with the protesters but the Suhodol residents refused to make any compromise or to lift the blockade.
Deputy Minister of Environment Manoela Georgieva said that the only way not to use the Suhodol refuse dump was to ask the mayor of the neighbouring village of Gorna Malina to allow the use of its site, but it would be filled up very quickly.
Another option, according to deputy mayor Milor Mihailov, was to use the Suhodol site for another seven or eight months until the much discussed refuse recycling factory is constructed in Kremikovtsi.
In spite of attempts by Sofianski to persuade the people to let the refuse vans unload at the dump site for at least a few days, the protesters booed and refused to listen or talk to him.
In the course of a few days at the end of the previous week, two of the major problems of Sofia, refuse and street dogs, occupied the front pages of the newspapers and led television news bulletins.
A 34-year-old woman, Elena Cholova, was attacked and bitten all over by a berserk pack of street dogs while doing her morning jogging at the Sports Academy stadium in the Studentski Grad area in Sofia. The incident sparked serious debate and small-scale immediate actions.
By January 10, the municipal unit in charge of street dogs, Ekoravnovesie, has taken care of the pack of more than 20 dogs in Studentski Grad but the problem remained in other parts of the city.
The head of the environment commission at the municipality, Nelly Manova, said that a zoo police unit would be set up within a few months to control both street and domestic dogs.
Manova also promised that within a month Ekoravnovesie would start a large-scale removal of street dogs from the city.
She said, in a change to previous policy, zoo inspectors, which will be accompanied by the new zoo police, will ignore the signs, collars and ear markings that the animals are safe, and will take them to the dog pound where they will be killed after 14 days.
Manova said that the only reason which had stopped the municipality from taking such steps so far were the militant animal lovers who were accusing the municipality of inhumane treatment of dogs and were physically attacking Ekoravnovesie officials.
According to Manova, the municipality will take steps to stop people adopting animals from the pound and then releasing them back on the streets.
Eco organisations responded that in the past six years the municipality had spent three million leva on killing dogs, instead of sterilising them. According to the dog lovers, between 1990 and 2002 a total of 47 725 street dogs were killed, in 2004 the total was 8 453 dogs killed, while there were a further other 10 000 to
12 000 dogs roaming the streets of Sofia.
The eco organisations accused Sofia mayor Stefan Sofianski of not carrying out his 2003 election promises and not applying the four-year programme for solving the dog problem through castration.
In the meantime the Supreme Administrative Prosecution (SAP) announced that it would start an inquiry into the activities of all mayors across the country regarding the dog problem. The prosecution will check the legality of actions and the application of Veterinary Activities Act and the 1948 Ordinance on Combating Rabies.
Sofianski got the attention of prosecutors because of the refuse problem as well.
The Sofia City Prosecution (SCP) started an investigation into the legality of the city refuse dump in Suhodol.
The prosecution started the inquiry after, from January 7, residents of the Suhodol area blocked the road to the city refuse dump across the ring road from their apartment buildings.
The Suhodol residents demanded the immediate discontinuation of the use of the dump site and claimed that in 2001 Sofianski had promised them that it would be used only until the end of 2004.
The protesters, who were guarding the blockade in shifts and in the company of their children, claimed that the dump site was posing health hazards, was dangerous for the environment and smelt terrible.
Officials from the Health Ministry and the Environment and Waters Ministry said that the dump site was ecologically safe and could be used for another year.
The roadblock caused serious problems throughout the city as refuse collection vans could not unload at the site and the city dumpsters started overflowing with refuse, which was carried around by homeless people and street dogs.
Hygiene experts warned that the warm weather will speed up the decomposition of the uncollected refuse and might cause a serious epidemic in Sofia.
City officials visited the roadblock on more than one occasion trying to reach an agreement with the protesters but the Suhodol residents refused to make any compromise or to lift the blockade.
Deputy Minister of Environment Manoela Georgieva said that the only way not to use the Suhodol refuse dump was to ask the mayor of the neighbouring village of Gorna Malina to allow the use of its site, but it would be filled up very quickly.
Another option, according to deputy mayor Milor Mihailov, was to use the Suhodol site for another seven or eight months until the much discussed refuse recycling factory is constructed in Kremikovtsi.
In spite of attempts by Sofianski to persuade the people to let the refuse vans unload at the dump site for at least a few days, the protesters booed and refused to listen or talk to him.
