Activists urge Chennai Corporation to adopt a systematic approach to manage street dogs

Packs of street dogs charging at pedestrians and moving vehicles has become a persistent problem facing the residents of Chennai in the last few months

Packs of street dogs charging at pedestrians and moving vehicles has become a persistent problem facing the residents of Chennai in the last few months.

While activists call for a systematic approach to animal birth control, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has not consolidated the number of community dogs since 2018.

Activists say the first step in preventing the proliferation of dogs is to ascertain their number. However, according to an official, the Corporation has no immediate plans to do this. The proposal was still in planning stage and the civic body hopes to rope in non-governmental organisations to assist it in the exercise.

J. Kamal Hussain, chief veterinary officer, GCC, said as per the 2018 census, there were 19,000 female dogs and the current estimate of the community dog number was arrived at by calculating the reproductive cycles of dogs and the number of birth control surgeries performed.

Calling for a stated objective to control the dog numbers, Abi T. Vanak, Director for the Centre for Policy Design, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), said it was important for local bodies to estimate the number of dogs in the city and target the proportion of dogs that had to be sterilised. “Absolute numbers are meaningless. What is the denominator?” he questioned.

Mr. Vanak suggested that to begin with, dogs that exhibited aggressive behaviour need to be identified and sheltered; urban local bodies must bring in a pet licensing policy and actively encourage adoption programmes.