Love them, hate them, but don’t get rid of them

Nagpur: The debate about stray animals began with animal rights activist KarishmaGalani underlining the distinction between homeless animals like stray dogs and pigs, and domestic animals like cows and bulls left to roam on the roads. “Lack of civic sense among people leads to animals becoming strays, be it improper disposal of garbage that attracts dogs or allowing cattle to forage at garbage bins,” she said.
Salim Ibrahim, a wildlife activist whose family has over a dozen pets including a donkey, said the only thing required to control strays was to ensure accountability of owners. “Impose a heavy fine for cattle on the roads, or even auction them off. Owners will automatically start keeping them in control,” he said. Galani said this was easier said than done, “A law on this was rolled back by politicians who support cattle owners. Such owners are responsible for the problem, not the stray cattle or dogs.” Admitting that Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme had failed twice, Galani blamed this on bad planning and implementation, and corruption in the programme.
Other than owners, Ibrahim also blamed people who dispose of garbage improperly or feed strays for increasing the problem. Galani said illegal mutton and chicken shops add to the problem as much as citizens. Dr Ela Kulkarni, an animal activist, said animal control schemes had failed due to improper implementation by municipal corporation staff, on which Ibrahim agreed with her.
Arvind Dhemre, who is campaigning to end the problem of strays, said, “We are basically clean, but never take the cleanliness habit beyond our walls. Also, our garbage disposal system is completely broken, encouraging stray dogs as well as cattle.” Galani blamed this on lazy municipal staff, who are not answerable to anyone, not even the civic chief. Ela pointed out the complete lack of garbage segregation at any point, making the system unscientific, unhealthy and unhygienic for all of us.
Rama Mahesh, who has been trying to get NMC to resolve a problem of stray dogs in her locality without much success, said, “I do not want to kill all stray dogs. But NMC does not respond positively even when I am trying to help control the problem in a humane manner.” This turned the discussion towards the responsibility of people with pets or those who feed stray dogs.
Galani said, “It is good to feed strays, since it keeps them away from the garbage, makes them loyal to residents and helps with security of the area. The trend of having community dogs is picking up these days, which also keep out other strays from the area.”
Mahesh said, “People take in or adopt strays as puppies, but stop caring for them when they grow up. Also, no one cleans up after such dogs,” Dhemre said, “Activists say stray dogs should be fed and treated like community dogs. But even such numbers need to be restricted.”
Galani countered by pointing out that there was no way one could eliminate strays completely. “Even some dogs of good breeds are left as strays by some. Activists like us have dealt with over 7,000 injured stray dogs over the last four years. We want them to be in homes, not roaming as strays, but there is no system to penalize truant owners.”
Dr Tushar Chopawar, an animal lover, said ABC programme had to be sustained and continuous to be of any use. "Breaks in NMC's ABC programme have negated all efforts.” Galani pointed to a lack of resources and funds for the programme, while Ela asked why only a few people show concern about the problem.
Prachi Sharma, a dog lover who has adopted six puppies, said, "People like me face problems from neighbours even when I am trying to help by removing strays from the roads and caring for them. Even NMC does not support us.”
Corporator Arun Dawre said public participation in general is zero. Every person must look beyond his wall, be a corporator and ideal citizen himself to solve every problem the society was facing, he added, with Ibrahim and Ela agreeing with him completely. “I am thinking of people 24 hours, while they are not thinking about society for even a minute,” he said.
Asked why corporators had opposed a fine on cattle owners, Dawre admitted there was pressure from some corporators and it was vote bank politics, but he rejected the allegation that all corporators owned cattle. “I support big fines on owners if cattle are found roaming on streets,” he said.
Ela said, “If cattle owners can be paid Rs15,000 compensation when tigers kill their cattle, they can also pay Rs5,000 fine if the cattle are found roaming on streets." Galani also blamed corporators for the failure of the proposal to have cattle fields at Bhandewadi.
Almost all participants agreed that cattle left to forage on garbage on the streets amounted to cruelty, but Galani and Ela said they faced a lot of problems in trying to get their owners booked by the police. They said there was a huge lack of awareness among common people too about such issues.
The debate also touched upon the responsibility of pet owners to clean up after their pets, with Dhemre saying hardly 5% people cleaned up their pet's poop from the streets. Almost all participants turned down suggestion to allow culling to bring down the number of stray dogs as it was inhuman. Dawre's suggestion of disposing of stray dogs into the jungles to serve as prey for wild animals was also shot down since it would expose wild animals to new diseases.
Chopawar said ABC was the only humane solution. However, Dawre pointed out ABC did not address the problem rabies or scabies in dogs, or the fact that packs of dogs run after vehicles in the night and also target small children riding on bicycles on roads, causing accidents. This drew vociferous protests from Chopawar, Ela and Galani, who also raked up the problems in ABC due to corruption and nexus between NGOs, politicians and civic officials.
Galani said even some NGOs were guilty of just minting money from the scheme, which was not monitored by an outside agency as it should have been. It was agreed by almost everyone that the best way to implement ABC was to fix a rate for each procedure and allow NGOs to take up the work in each ward or zone, with proper monitoring.