Human safety first, dogs later: The recent incident of stray dogs killing a six-year-old girl has shocked society. Once again, our helplessness in protecting our citizens stands exposed.
“Stray dog menace” has become a routine subject, which we read in newspapers every morning and forget by the time we are ready to leave for work. It does not evoke a reaction for more than a few minutes, mostly in the form of anger on the recklessness of the authorities, who have not done their duty properly.
We also tend to curse the lawmakers for enacting the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act-1960, providing protection to animals at the cost of safety to human beings. But let us understand that safety of animals, as contemplated under the law, is not necessarily at the cost of human life or safety.
Right to Life is a Fundamental Right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The animals’ right to safety is recognised under a statute, which casts an obligation on human beings not to treat animals cruelly. Basically, the Act aims at protecting animals from being ill-treated or exploited.
The Act also lays down the manner in which stray dogs and old and sick animals are to be dealt with. The Act provides for constitution of an Animal Welfare Board of India, comprising government authorities from various departments and representatives of NGOs.
The Board, among other functions, is empowered to take all such steps as it may think fit to ensure that unwanted animals are destroyed by local authorities, whenever it is necessary to do so, either instantaneously or after being rendered insensible to pain or suffering.
Thus, the authority responsible by law for identifying and taking necessary steps for destruction of stray dogs, is the local authority. It is not just the menace of stray dogs.
There are several instances where wild animals like leopards and elephants step out of their habitat and endanger human lives. In such instances, if the wild animal has to be killed as a last resort, to protect human life, it is no sin.
Protection of environment and wildlife is no doubt important. Every such need is to sub serve human needs, to make the world a better place to live in for humans.
Stray dogs attacking humans have become routine and this is proved by the statistics of dog bite cases in government hospitals. Sterilising such animals is no solution at all.
Animal rights activists are an organised brigade. But victims of dog bites, who are scattered and do not have a strong voice, cannot lobby; nor do they have glamour that attracts the media.
When animals become a threat to human lives and the authorities fail to perform their duty of protecting human life, it is a matter of concern and an issue of violation of human rights. If it is stray animals versus humans, human life should necessarily prevail and this should be ensured by the government.
Vani Suri, Advocate, Supreme Court
Killing dogs is not the answer: A six-year-old girl is raped and killed by her 24-year-old neighbour. Let us castrate all males in the city and put them behind bars! A seven-year-old boy is thrashed to death by a school teacher who was a repeat offender. Try all teachers in the city for murder and shut down all schools! Sounds ridiculous, unfair and unpractical? Yes! Looks like a total knee-jerk reaction? Yes!
A six-year-old is attacked and killed by dogs. Kill every dog in the city by any means, poisoning, shooting, beating with sticks and so on. Moral, ethical, practical, workable? No, no, no!
Why are there so many dogs on our streets? For centuries Indians lived with their dogs with no problems. But in today’s cities, we have many civic problems.
The dog population is directly proportional to the human population in a city and the garbage they generate. That means we create the problem and then cry hoarse about it.
Where there is food (uncleared garbage) on the streets there will be dogs and rats to eat them as there can be no vacuum in nature.
The only scientific and workable solution: Adopt the WHO suggested ABC-AR programme and implement it in letter and spirit.
The Central in 2001 had made it mandatory for all government bodies to stop killing stray dogs and adopt the programme. GHMC has has been implementing it for the last few years.
What is the ABC AR programme? It stands for Animal Birth Control and Anti Rabies programme. This entails the following steps:
Divide a city into circular zones moving inward from outward. Take a census of the dog population in a given area. Create awareness about the project and involve the human stake holders of the area to catch the strays.
Once that is done, sterilise them and vaccinate them with anti-rabies vaccine. Once they recover they are to be released in the same locality that they were caught from.
Out of the dogs caught only the very sick or highly aggressive ones, as decided by the vets, are to be humanely and painlessly euthanised.
This will result in the following: As the dogs in the area are sterilised there will be no more pups, thereby controlling the population; there will not be any cases of rabies; being sterilised, the dogs become calm and chasing of vehicles and people is reduced.
The success of this project depends on two things. One, the involvement of the stake holders, the citizens of this country. The second is the implementation of this project exactly as it is meant to be by the civic bodies.
In conclusion I would like to state that what is imperative is for us to make our colony/city /state/country a rabies free area with a healthy and manageable dog population. It is for all the stake holders to understand and accept ownership of the problem and work in tandem with the concerned government body for the implementation of the ABC/AR programme.
Vasanthi Vadi, Founder Secretary, People For Animals
