Kerala’s dilemma: To kill or not to kill biting stray dogs, Maneka says ‘don’t kill’

When Colonel Menon (name changed) entered the house of his friend Colonel Nair, Nair’s dog came barking at Menon. Menon shouted for help from Nair. Nair said: “Menon, don’t you know, barking dogs don’t bite”. To which Menon replied: “I know it, you know it, but the dog doesn’t know it!”

This in a way reflects Kerala’s present dilemma—how to tackle the alarming stray dog menace. Kerala is estimated to have a stray dog population of 2.5 lakh, which feed lavishly on the wastes and garbage dumps across cities and towns. According to Government’s estimate, more than one lakh people in the State have been bitten by dogs in 2014-15. There are reports of even pet dogs taken out for a walk by their masters and mistresses being attacked by stray dogs.

Stray dog menace threatens to affect the tourism industry as well, after incidents of attacks on tourists by packs of stray dogs lurking on the beaches, street corners, public parks and markets. The burgeoning stray dog population has also led to a surge in the number of accidents involving two-wheelers. Even the state Assembly complex and MLA hostels in Thiruvananthapuram are not free from dog menace.

When there was a public outcry against the stray dog menace, the Government first tried to allay the people’s fears, like Colonel Nair did, by holding that barking dogs don’t bite. But when the stray dog menace aggravated and more and more people, including morning walkers, newspaper boys and children, fell victim to dog bites, the Government decided to cull the stray dogs and thus reduce their population. Even expert dog-catchers were brought in by civic bodies from Ooty to cull the dogs.

But animal lovers raised a hell over the move to cull dogs. There was a furore even in the social media against mercy killing of stray dogs. None other than Union Minister for Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi herself sought an explanation from Muvattupuzha Municipality on a complaint that the Municipality was killing stray dogs. The complaint followed reports that a dog, said to have bitten 30 people, was beaten to death in the municipality area.

In an interview to a news magazine, Maneka reacted strongly against the move to cull stray dogs in Kerala and opined that sterilization of dogs was the proper remedy for the menace. “You can’t say a dog is rabid just because it barks or behaves violently. By nature, rabid dogs don’t bark,” she was quoted as stating in the interview.

The Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations is reportedly planning to move the Supreme Court against killing stray dogs en masse.

To strike a balance between dog bite victims and animal lovers, the Government is now working on a multi-pronged strategy to tackle the menace which include, in addition to selective culling, sterilisation of stray dogs, rehabilitation and birth control measures for dogs. The Animal Husbandry Department is now in the process of opening 50 centres across the state with adequate veterinarians and support staff for spaying/neutering the stray dogs.

Even as the Government and the animal lovers fight it out, stray dogs continue to have a field day.

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