Ashiq Hussain
SRINAGAR: The only hope of Kashmir government to rid people of the growing dog menace seems to be faltering.
Started nearly 10 months ago, the government’s animal birth control program aimed to immunise and stabilize the growing population of canines has failed to make a substantial progress.
The program carried out by Srinagar Municipal Corporation at dog centre Suhama, with a capacity of just 50 kennels, has managed to sterilize a mere 1000 canines at the rate of 5 to 10 surgeries a day as against the yearly average birth rate of 6 to 12 puppies per dog.
And Kashmir Divisional Commissioner Asghar Samoon’s announcement to construct another dog centre at Tengpora to increase the daily number of surgeries has antagonised the residents who have expressed stiff opposition against the move.
“The sterilisation process is all set to get stuck. We are having a lot of resistance from locals at Tengpora. They have openly expressed their resentment but on the other hand we are being pressurised by Animal Welfare Board of India,” said an official at SMC.
The state government has been weary to cull the dog population fearing backlash from animal rights activists despite the presence of a dog for every 13 residents of the summer capital Srinagar.
Owing to the ban, there has been a 100% surge in the number of dog bite cases in the past four years. In 2012, nearly 20,000 people, majority of them school going children, were bitten by stray canines across the valley.
The centre at Suhama is currently closed after AWBI expressed fears that sub-zero temperatures could result in hypothermia or extreme cold shocks to the dogs undergoing surgery.
“The process will start in March again. Since November 15, we have performed no surgery after directions from AWBI,” said Vetenary Officer of SMC, Dr Javaid Rather.
He said that the rate of surgeries should shoot up by 15 times to make a possible impact.
“If we are able to perform around 150 surgeries a day in various centres, by 2015 dog population will stabilize,” he stated.
But official inertia, lack of manpower and infrastructure besides opposition from public indicates that the process was bound to take time, a guarantee for its failure.
“The pace of sterilization can’t match the pace of reproduction of dogs. On an average a bitch can give birth to 80 puppies in her life time of 10 to 12 years. In a year she can deliver twice giving birth to 12 puppies,” said a doctor at anti-rabies clinic of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar.
“Even if only half of her puppies survive, the dogs will outnumber humans in Srinagar within years,” he said.
Expert in community medicine Dr Salim Khan, who presented a paper in 3rd Rabies in Asia Conference (RIACON) last year on Socio-economic burden due to “ever-increasing stray dog population” in J&K, questioned the logic of the government to immunize the dogs when it has failed to provide free Rabies Immunoglobulin (RIG) to humans.
He said that the immunization should complete in a short period of time.
“It is necessary to vaccinate 70% of the total dog population in a short period of time, maintain that immune coverage and protect the area from spill over through control of dog movement from affected adjacent areas ,” Dr Khan quoted Dr François-Xavier Meslin, a team leader in WHO’s department of neglected tropical diseases.
