(IN) Boy's death sparks huge Bangalore dog cull

[Guest guest]

South China Morning Post

Monday, March 5, 2007

http://asia.scmp.com/asianews/ZZZXXJQSTYE.html

 

Officials of hi-tech hub finally promise to tackle 76,000 marauding

mutts

 

Bangalore municipal workers started rounding up thousands of

street dogs yesterday in India's hi-tech hub after a young child was

savaged to death by a pack of neighbourhood strays last week.

Thirty vans, each with three dog catchers, a policeman and a health

officer, were deployed throughout the sprawling city of nearly 7

million to bring the canines to animal shelters, Bangalore municipal

commissioner K. Jairaj said.

 

Thirty specialists had been summoned from the western city of

Ahmedabad and the Malabar region of Kerala state to

tackle " ferocious " strays that are " very hard to catch " , he said.

 

There are 76,000 stray dogs in Bangalore, " give or take a few

thousand " , Mr Jairaj said.

 

" We will go after the dogs that hunt in packs, lead the packs, are

diseased and a menace to the society, " he said. " We will scrupulously

go by rules prescribed by the World Health Organisation. These dogs

will be taken to animal welfare organisations to be tamed and

subjected to birth control measures. "

 

Dogs found to be uncontrollably vicious would be put to death, but

there would not be " indiscriminate culling " , prohibited under the

rules.

 

The drive follows the death last Wednesday of Manjunath, four, who

was attacked by a pack of 15 street dogs while playing outside his

house in a Bangalore suburb.

 

Manjunath, whose family was left in deep trauma, died in the hospital

nine hours after being mauled.

 

His death sparked street protests in Bangalore at the weekend that

disrupted traffic, and roused the Karnataka state government that

administers the southern Indian city into pledging a " merciless "

drive against street dogs.

 

" We'll intensify the culling and killing operations without any

mercy, " Karnataka Health Minister R. Ashok said, adding all stray

dogs would be put down within a month.

 

Two months ago, a nine-year-old girl was mauled to death by a vicious

pack of street dogs.

 

Critics said the latest incident showed the Bangalore Municipal

Corporation had done nothing since to tame the canine menace.

 

" Enough is enough, " the local daily Deccan Herald wrote in a Saturday

editorial. " Let us not wait for another innocent life to be lost

before we take action. "

 

Street dogs are a common sight in Bangalore, home to India's software

industry. Packs of strays have free run from suburban residential

neighbourhoods and shopping districts to the city centre. A birth

control programme, run for the past decade by animal welfare centres

with the municipal corporation, has proved ineffective.

 

Yesterday, the municipal corporation published newspaper

advertisements advising residents to " keep away children from street

dogs. " Unauthorised shops and restaurants selling meat - where stray

dogs tend to congregate - will be closed down and people found

dumping food in public places fined, it said.

 

But culling isn't the solution, say animal lovers and welfare groups.

 

Even if 80 per cent of the stray dogs were put to death, their

population would return to its original size in three to four years,

Animal Welfare Board of India chairman R.M. Kharb told the Sunday

Times of India.