Despite massive protests from animal lovers, the Turkish parliament yesterday approved a controversial piece of legislation to simplify the killing of street dogs in future. Ownerless dogs are to disappear from the streets of Turkey and - the German Animal Welfare Association fears - be taken to animal shelters en masse. While an initial draft still provided for the killing of dogs that are not placed after 30 days, this is now off the table. However, sick and aggressive dogs are to be euthanized. Luca Secker, specialist for pets at the German Animal Welfare Association, comments:
“The adopted law is and remains a massive step backwards for Turkey in terms of animal welfare. We are appalled and disappointed that Turkey has chosen this path, even though the previous “catch, neuter, release” law offered an animal-friendly and sustainable alternative to reduce the street animal population. However, Turkey has not consistently implemented and financially supported this, meaning that the proliferation of dogs has never been sufficiently prevented.
We know from Romania, for example, that catching or even killing dogs does not lead to a reduction in the free-roaming dog population. The dogs that remain on the streets will continue to multiply and quickly close “gaps” in the population, especially as once captured dogs - even friendly animals - should no longer be released.
With only around 110,000 shelter places and an estimated four million street dogs, shelter capacity will soon be exhausted. Animal rights activists in Turkey are therefore probably right to fear that the passage in the law allowing the killing of aggressive and sick dogs could be used as a loophole. Because when a dog is classified as aggressive or sick and euthanized is not precisely defined and is probably decided solely by the person carrying out the procedure on site.”
