Türkiye’s new law to deal with stray dogs

Turkey’s parliament approved a law on Tuesday that aims to collect millions of stray dogs and keep them in shelters; A plan that has alarmed animal advocates who say a mass sterilization campaign would be a better solution.

According to the law proposed by the ruling Justice and Development Party led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, municipalities must collect stray dogs from the streets. Any dog ​​that exhibits aggressive behavior or has an incurable disease will be destroyed.

According to previous laws, municipalities had to sterilize and vaccinate all street dogs and release them where they were found after treatment.

According to the draft bill of the Turkish Parliament, the population of street dogs in Turkey is estimated at 4 million people, and municipalities have sterilized about 2.5 million dogs in the last 20 years. These animals are often taken care of by the residents of the neighborhood and treated like pets.

According to this bill, there are currently 322 animal shelters with a capacity of 105,000 dogs in Turkey.

This law also requires all municipalities to spend at least 0.3% of their annual budget on animal rehabilitation services and building shelters. According to this law, municipalities will be given time until 2028 to build new shelters and improve the current shelters.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest this law in the past few weeks, occasionally clashing with the police.

Translator: Azam Purkand