Animal rights activists decry handling of stray dogs in Erbil

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Animal rights activists in Erbil have expressed their dissatisfaction with the “inappropriate” way the authorities have been collecting stray dogs to be placed in shelters, telling Rudaw on Wednesday that “no healthy conscience” would approve how the process is carried out.

Erbil province on Saturday started collecting stray dogs from the streets of the city and placing them in a shelter following an alarming rise in the number of incidents of dogs biting people. 

“Nowhere in the world have dogs been collected in garbage trucks during the heat of the summer,” Marzia Hassan, an animal rights activist told Rudaw’s Soran Hussein, stressing that the dogs are being collected in a way that “no healthy conscience would accept.” 

Hassan also decried that animal rights activists, including herself, have been prevented from trying to help the teams collecting the dogs and from visiting the shelter where they are sent to.

After being captured on the streets, the dogs will be taken to a new shelter which consists of 20 dunams of land (one dunam is 2500 square meters) and can accommodate up to 12,500 dogs. 
 
“We are not against the opening of shelters. We think they are good. But they [the dogs] can’t be placed in an empty spacy without a single tree,” said animal rights activist Khabat Mohammed.

Mohammed said that an average life span of a dog is 13 years, but claimed that in Kurdistan Region very few dogs live up to three years due to the lack of care and constant harassment. She suggested that involving animal rights activists in the collection process and having them guide the municipality workers would be better for the dogs.

The head of Erbil’s services and environmental protection directorate cited the inexperience of their employees and the hostile nature of the dogs for the way the dogs have been collected.

“Our staff have no experience, and the dogs in our country cannot be easily caught, that is why they are being collected in that way,” Zhyar Jalal told Rudaw, adding that their teams have collected nearly 50 dogs since the campaign began.

Jalal also slammed the animal rights activists for protesting the collection process, but staying quiet when a dog biting incident occurs.

“The animal rights activists are dissatisfied with the way of collecting dogs and sending them to shelters, but when a dog eats a kid, and attacks people, they are silent,” he said. 

Stray dogs are often considered dirty and a public health risk. There are over 300,000 stray dogs in the Kurdistan Region, according to the Sulaimani-based Kurdistan Green Party, which also reported at least 124 dog-related injuries in Erbil during March. Over the years, various cities have tried different tactics to address the problem, but their efforts have been criticized by animal rights organizations.

Animal rights advocates recommend dogs be captured, neutered, and released as the most humane way of controlling the population and worry that fights could break out if a large number of dogs are confined in a shelter.