TODAY
No easy solution for strays
A combination of measures are used to manage animal population here
Friday • January 30, 2009
Letter from Goh Shih Yong
Assistant Director, Corporate Communications for Chief Executive Officer,
Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority:
We refer to the article “The outspoken doc” (Jan 20).
Stray animal population control is a complex issue and there are no easy solutions.
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) is fully committed to ensuring animal health and welfare and has adopted a balanced approach in the management of strays.
For dogs, all must be licensed for the purpose of rabies control. Rabies is a disease fatal to man. It is endemic in this region. AVA culls stray dogs to manage the risk of rabies transmission should the disease be introduced into Singapore.
As all dogs, whether sterilised or not, are susceptible to rabies, sterilised strays should be properly homed and licensed, and not be returned to the environment.
For cats, AVA encourages sterilisation as a way to help prevent the proliferation of strays.
This alone, however, is not enough. It is a fact that stray cats, including sterilised ones, create numerous disamenities to the public, ranging from nuisance to hygiene concerns, even physical threat.
It is thus inevitable that culling has to be carried out as an additional measure to keep the stray population in check.
AVA and the Town Councils (TC) are open to working together with the community and the caregivers in looking at keeping the stray cat population manageable.
In any precinct, caregivers wanting to start a sterilisation programme for stray cats should approach and work with the TC, as the TC is in a better position to understand the concerns of the majority of its residents.
We believe, above all, that public education on responsible pet ownership is key to reducing the problem of strays.
To this end, AVA actively promotes and organises campaigns on responsible pet ownership. We are confident that with perseverance, there will be an improvement to the stray animals problem in the longer term.
We thank Dr Tan Chek Wee for his passion and commitment in helping in the management of stray cats in the community.
We are equally appreciative of the same effort put in by many other caregivers in their own communities.
While the AVA and TC will continue to work together with the community and the caregivers, we must also balance the interest of all sectors in the community, including those who are adversely affected by stray cats.
This letter gives an excellent opportunity to be the voices for the stray dogs and cats - write to
TODAY at news@newstoday.com.sg; include full name, address and contact phone number
cc to "Shih Yong GOH" <GOH_Shih_Yong@ava.gov.sg>
Read
Fact "Singapore has been free from rabies since 1953"
Sri Lanka “Work Together to Eliminate Rabies”. Vaccinating home-bred and stray dogs and sterilization to control dog population will be extensively undertaken island -wide."
Control of rabies in Jaipur, India, by the sterilisation and vaccination of neighbourhood dogs.Help in Suffering, Maharani Farm, Durgapura, Jaipur 302018, Rajasthan, India.
A programme to sterilise and vaccinate neighbourhood dogs against rabies was established in Jaipur, India. Neighbourhood dogs were captured humanely, sterilised surgically, vaccinated against rabies and, when they had recovered, released where they had been caught. Between November 1994 and December 2002, 24,986 dogs were treated in this way. Direct observational surveys of the local dog population indicated that 65 per cent of the females were sterilised and vaccinated, and that the population declined by 28 per cent. The records of human cases of rabies seen in the main government hospital of the city between January 1992 and December 2002 showed that the number of cases had declined to zero in the programme area but increased in other areas.
Rabies control in Nepal - Dog Sterilization and Vaccination Program at IAAS
Pro-stray dog responses e.g. sterilisation, cleanliness
The effective solution: Sterilisation-cum-vaccination
For decades the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai used to kill up to 50,000 stray dogs annually. The method used was electrocution. In 1994, in response to demands made by our organisation and others, dog-killing was replaced by mass sterilisation and immunisation of stray dogs. Under this programme, stray dogs are surgically neutered and then replaced in their own area. They are also vaccinated against rabies.
* Since territories are not left vacant, new dogs cannot enter.
* Mating and breeding also cease.
* With no mating or crossing of territories, dog fights reduce dramatically.
* Since fighting reduces, bites to humans also become rare.
* The dogs are immunised, so they do not spread rabies.
* Over time, as the dogs die natural deaths, their numbers dwindle.
The dog population becomes stable, non-breeding, non-aggressive and rabies-free, and it gradually decreases over a period of time.
