ABC helps dogs and people in Kathmandu Valley

[Guest guest]

*Dog sterilizations cheer up city dwellers

*

 

BY DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR

 

KATHMANDU, April 4 - Until three years ago, Mahesh Shrestha, a resident of

Naxal, used to pass sleepless nights, with stray dogs barking in his

neighborhood all night. During the daytime, the same dogs used to block the

roads, making movement of locals like Shrestha difficult.

 

" Everything has changed now, " says Shrestha. And, things have also changed

for other residents of Maharajgunj, Thamel and Naxal for good.

 

Moreover, things have also changed for the dogs themselves: they don't have

to die a painful death by consuming poisoned food anymore, thanks to the

Kathmandu Animal Treatment Center (KATC), which launched the animal birth

control (ABC) campaign in 2004.

 

Since the ABC campaign and vaccination against rabies, especially for female

dogs, were launched in 2004, there has been significant reduction in the

population of stray dogs in various Kathmandu neighborhoods. The Kathmandu

Metropolitan City (KMC) had given the go-ahead to this campaign after the

" relatively costly and ineffective campaign " of poisoning stray dogs didn't

pay off.

 

Dr Baburam Gautam, Chief of Public Health Department at KMC, says this

campaign has not only saved many dogs from dying untimely and painful death,

it has also saved KMC the money required to poison dogs and dump the dead

(Rs 400,000 a year).

 

According to KMC officials, for a decade until 2004, KMC did not have any

alternative or permanent solution to control the stray dog population apart

from killing them by strychnine poison in lumps of meat, killing about

10,000 dogs each year. This process kills dogs slowly and agonizingly,

taking as long as nine hours. Worse, such practice not only killed stray

dogs, but some pet dogs too. And it was also a risk to street children and

the environment.

 

" Irritated and fed up residents of various neighborhoods used to visit our

office with complaints everyday, " reminisces Dr Gautam, adding, " but

nowadays there is neither any complaint nor the ugly scene of dead dogs

lying around. "

 

According to a survey conducted in Kathmandu Valley in September-October

2006 by KATC, with support from the World Health Organization, the canine

population of Kathmandu streets is about 20,000, which was more than 30,000

before 2004.

 

*According to KATC statistics, it has sterilized, spayed, given anti-rabies

vaccines, and notched the ear of such dogs to about 4,300 female stray dogs

and treated many since it launched its campaign. *

 

 

--

Lucia de Vries

Freelance Journalist

Bagdol, Patan, Nepal

Wijk 4-47, 8321 GE Urk, Holland