Kerala Stray Menace: Hate Messages To Physical Attacks, Rescuers And Dog Feeders Feel The Heat
Recently Kerala once again made headlines for a spike in stray dog attacks which reignited the debate on who is responsible and how to control the menace.
While the never-ending debate and stray dog attacks continue in the state it is the animal rescuers and good samaritans who feed strays that face the heat.
NGOs feeders blamed for stray menace
In the past few weeks, there have been at least a handful of incidents where individuals feeding strays and NGO volunteers who were trying to rescue injured dogs were harassed and even physically attacked by angry locals accusing them of causing the menace and demanding that they should take them away.
This kind of behaviour is not anything new for Ambili Purackal, who has been running Daya Animal Welfare a shelter for stray dogs in the city of Muvattupuzha in Kerala's Ernakulam district.
"We started Daya in 2001 and since then every time there is an increase in stray dog attacks in the state, we have been on the receiving end of hate. We get bombarded with trolling online and offline. People think that we are responsible for the increase in stray dog menace, but we are not," Ambili told?Indiatimes.
You love dogs, keep them all
Daya Animal Welfare currently has over 100 dogs under its care, including injured, aged, and abandoned, and is getting more and more calls every day from people who want to abandon their pets.
According to her, the NGO which receives only nominal external funding as donations is already over-stretched and the rescued dogs are kept at the homes of some of the volunteers, with Ambail's own home sheltering 55 of them.
"But people outside don't know any of theses. They think that we are getting huge amount of donation and we are doing this for money, but that is not the case. When our volunteers are out on the field, they are regularly confronted with questions like - since you love dogs so much, why don't you take them all and keep them with you?," she said.
No action against attackers by police?
Earlier this month the Supreme Court had orally suggested that people who routinely feed stray dogs could be made responsible for their vaccination and also liable to bear the costs if those animals attack people.
Ambili said that this is now being used against animal charities and good samaritans.?
Even when they are confronted or attacked by mobs, she said that the police rarely act.
"Most of the times they won't even register an FIR and even if they do no further action is taken by them," she said.
According to the Kerala government, there are around 5 lakh stray dogs in the state. The recent spike in stray dog attacks has raised questions about the implementation of animal birth control (ABC) on strays.?
Pets abandoned after lockdown was over
Ambili however pointed out that a large number of these strays were someone's pets until recently.
"In the past one week alone we got around ten dogs from the street, who were recently abandoned. They were not feral dogs and had not adapted to living on the streets. These are mostly in 2-3 year age group. In most likelihood they were bought as pets by someone during the lockdown, because they had a lot of free time. But now since things have become normal and they started going to offices they don't have time for the pets, the owners are abandoning them on the streets," she said.
Dogs don't belong to the street
One of the biggest arguments of those calling for the culling of strays in Kerala to end the menace is that dogs do not belong to the street. Ambili who has been rescuing dogs for more than 20 years agree, but added that killing them is not the solution.
"There is no place for stray dogs in a civilised society. But we cannot go around killing them, instead, we need to make sure that the circumstances that lead to this are dealt with. To start with the open dumping of waste on the streets, including from slaughterhouses, which ends up becoming food for stray dogs should stop. Pets should be registered and tagged so that if the owner abandons them, the culprits can be identified as penalised. Another very important step is to implement ABC, to gradually bring down their population," she said.
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