What great news! You think we can get Puerto Rican officials to take a short educational trip to Nepal?
Thanks to The Rising Nepal for this article.
Capital city to be stray dog-free in 15 years
By Indira Aryal
Kathmandu, Dec. 17:It won’t be long before the capital city will stop seeing dogs loitering around, the credit for this goes to the Kathmandu Metropolitan City.
The successful sterilization of stray dogs is being carried out and it is well into its fourth year now. The city is bracing ahead to be a stray-dog-free-zone after 15 years.
The Kathmandu Animal Treatment Centre backed by Kathmandu Metropolitan City has been sterilizing the stray dogs for the past four years as the animal rights groups opposed vehemently against the mass poisoning of the dogs.
Showing the statistics, head of the Public Health Department under KMC, Dr. Babu Ram Gautam said about 40 per cent of the stray and community dogs were already operated and provided anti-rabies vaccine through Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme.
Talking to The Rising Nepal, Gautam said that KMC used to poison the stray dogs and bury them in far off areas. “It was not an effective method to control the growing mongrel population because only 40 to 50 per cent dogs consumed the poison while rest of the dogs were into breeding again to give birth to puppies. Dogs are used to giving birth twice a year. The average reproduction rate is close to five to ten puppies at one time.”
“There was no clear- cut policy with the central and local governments regarding the control of dogs. The KMC used to kill the dogs and bury them at night but the locals complained about it.” Gautam, however, did not disclose where the dogs were buried.
Recalling an incident, he said that the locals followed the KMC staffs after the burial of the dead dogs and protested. He said that they had to unearth and take the dead dogs to another place.
Dr. Gautam said, “Sterilizing the dogs would be more effective method as such method would not contaminate underground water and it would also be a permanent solution.”
People were against the killing of dogs and said it was against animal rights. The killing also could not control rabies, as the growth rate of dog population is very high, he added. The KMC had been killing about 10,000 dogs annually for 50 years.
He said that all sterilised and vaccinated dogs are marked on their ears and that would help identify them from rest of the dogs. Still we are killing the dogs suffering from rabies and other diseases and burying them, he informed.
The ABC programme has been started with the joint initiation of Kathmandu Animal Treatment (KAT) Centre and KMC encouraged them for the programme, he said. “First we provided them dogcatchers, other few staffs and vehicle but now they have been managing themselves,” Dr. Gautam said.
Manager at the KAT Centre, Khageshwor Sharma said that they have covered 40 per cent of the metro city inside the ring road and it was an ongoing programme. He said that the killing of animals was inhuman and it would not help in birth control. All the South Asian countries are running the birth control programme, he informed.
