The Way Forward: Managing Dog Numbers Humanely

Instead of ridding spaces of strays, sterilizing and vaccinating them has had more success across cities in India and abroad

- Shrabonti Bagchi

A bodh Aras recalls an incident from 15 years ago when a posh Mumbai club, which had around 38 sterilized stray dogs in its grounds, got rid of them illegally overnight. No one knows where they were taken—whether they were culled or dumped in some other area. But what followed was predictable—strays from surrounding areas moved in quickly to occupy the territory, and the members of the club soon had a bigger problem on their hands. Instead of sterilized strays that were familiar with them and the surroundings, they had packs of un-neutered, unfamiliar dogs roaming around the compound.

Around eight years later, they had over 100 strays within the premises. "After consistent sterilization, the number has come down to 58—still more than it was earlier. If they had not removed the original dogs, the population would have been in single digits by now," says Aras, whose organization The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) was involved in the sterilization process.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's suo moto order of 11 August asking municipal authorities in the National Capital Region to pick up stray dogs from the streets and "relocate" them to "shelters" within two months, a debate over strays raged across India. Organizations like The Welfare of Stray Dogs, along with other NGOs that have been working with strays since the early noughties in Mumbai, are clear that relocating or removing strays is simply a solution that does not work—not even in the medium term. Another Bench of the Supreme Court modified the order on 22 August, and directed that the animals be sterilized, vaccinated and released back into the same area.