Kyrgyzstan has not decided yet how to control stray dogs. Private funds and charity organisations deal with this problem instead of municipal bodies.
A story of rescued Chernysh
A mutt dog named Chernysh lives in a carton with soft mat under the balcony of an apartment house in a microdistrict of Bishkek. The dog shares its “living space” with neighbours, namely stray cats, from time to time. There is always a bowl with water sitting near the self-made doghouse. Irina, living in the house, always brings food to the strays.
It was her who rescued the dog from “killers”, that is how she calls the employees of Tazalyk, who shoot stray animals in the capital city.
“I live on the first floor. When it’s warm, my windows are always open, and I heard some loud burst of sound. It was very early in the morning. I looked out to see what was happening and I saw those were animal killers. There were no permanently living stray dogs in our household back then. I thought why did they come then? I came out and saw this big black mutt. My heart sank,” Irina said.
Finally, the woman turned the Tazalyk employees back and threatened to make a fuss and call neighbours for help. According to Irina, the dog did not come, yet did not run away either.
“I’ve brought some food to it,” the pensioner said.
The woman said that she could not and still cannot take the dog home as she has three adult cats and a small apartment. But Irina can make a kind of a doghouse for the dog and feed it regularly. Therefore, Chernysh, as she called the dog, has been living under her balcony for a few months already and does not leave. There were no more dog shooters either.
“I am strongly against shooting the animals. Next month, when I get my pension, I want to sterilise the dog. This is how the urban problem of stray animals should be resolved. This dog does even approach people, does not bark at them, is not aggressive towards them. Why kill it at all?” she said.
Bishkek residents get bitten by stray animals more often
The situation with stray dogs’ bites is a major issue in Bishkek and Chui region. In other towns and regions, 5-6 citizens seek medical care every year, but in the capital city their number is over 2 thousand per year, and their number tends to increase.
Thus, in five months of 2022 the number of citizens who sought medical care because of bites of pet dogs and stray dogs was 2,376 people in Bishkek. in 2021, there were 2,345 visits to doctors in 12 months.
The mayor’s office provided the statistical data on May 19, 2022 at the session of the city multisector coordination committee for socially important and highly infectious diseases, as well as the city coordination commission of the mayor’s office of Bishkek on health protection chaired by Viktoria Mozgacheva, vice mayor for social issues.
It’s either mayor’s office or aiyl okmotu who is responsible for stray animal shooting at any residential place of Kyrgyzstan. Every year, local governments get money for shooting from the budget. Thus, according to the mayor’s office of Bishkek, in 2022 4 million 260 thousand som (53,585 thousand dollars) are allocated in the city budget for getting rid of stray animals. All stray “animals” are targeted because not only stray dogs, but also stray cats get shot.
Nazgul Dzhamgyrchieva, head of PR department, mayor’s office of Bishkek, said that stray dogs and cats are shot or trapped on the basis of people’s requests only.
“Previously, employees of Tazalyk municipal enterprise scoured the streets of Bishkek according to the schedule, and now they work by people’s requests. A city-dweller should call, report the attack, leave their contacts and file the application. Not all animals get shot. This is a myth when they say that Tazalyk shoots all indiscriminately,” Dzhamgyrchieva said.
She said that requests to get rid of stray cats are very rare. Employees of the sanitation department visit the place before the shooting and check whether stray animals have collars, leashes, muzzles. If a dog or cat have signs of a breed, or a collar with a name of owners on it, Tazalyk employees will compulsorily find the owners’ location and hand the pet back.
According to ex-vice mayor Zhamalbek Yrsaliev, in 2021 there were nearly 200 thousand stray dogs in the city. Tazalyk employees shot almost 17 thousand dogs, according to official data.
Animal rights activists protest
In 2021, the mayor’s office of Bishkek imposed a month-long moratorium on stray dogs killing. This initiative was adopted after numerous pickets of animal rights activists. However, one month later, according to mayor’s office representatives, the ban was lifted because of frequent phone calls of citizens complaining about attacks of animals.
Moreover, yet another reaction of the town council to the pickets of animal rights activists was the offer to acquire free dog collars. Since 2019, the mayor’s office has distributed special reflective collars with tags among vet clinics of the city.
Citizens are offered to take such “identification tags” for free and put them on dogs who have owners. Tazalyk employees, according to the mayor’s office of Bishkek, stay away from such animals.
However, it should be emphasised that despite free of charge collars, they are provided only upon presentation of a veterinary certificate that indicates a dog’s owner. Therefore, if any citizen wants to make sure that a local mutt that they feed does not suffer from “dog catchers” accidentally, they should take responsibility and become its owner. This requirement was found inappropriate by some people calling themselves “animal rights defenders.”
Peaceful protests against dog killing continued. The last one was held in December 2021. Back then, nearly 50 activists took out to the government house and demanded to develop a set of measures to resolve the problem of cruelty to stray animals.
The activists reminded to the city authorities that the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic has article 163, which provides for imprisonment and indemnification against material damage for cruelty to animals.
Does the law work?
A precedent of criminal responsibility for cruelty to animals was set in Kyrgyzstan in 2018. Back then, a dog of mayor’s advisor Gulya Almanbetova was stolen. The dog owners insisted on the trial by writing the letter to ex-president Sooronbai Zheenbekov.
As a result, the case of dog theft was considered by Sverdlovsky district court of Bishkek. The thief, Temirbolot Satybaldiev, was found guilty in the animal’s death and was bound to pay 35 thousand som (440 dollars) of compensation to the affected party and he also had to sign the recognizance not to leave for three years.
Chipping as an alternative to shooting
In 2021, representatives of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for animal rights offered to the mayor’s office of Bishkek to pay all costs of sterilisation of stray dogs on the condition of discontinuation of shooting.
In 2021, the first stage of the programme was implemented. One thousand dogs were sterilised. The animals were returned back to the city after the procedure. This year, according to Philippe Boizot, representative of the foundation, they estimate to catch eight thousand dogs for the operation.
“In 2023, we will count if we could reduce the population or not. If we could, we’ll estimate the funding and calculate how many dogs need to be sterilised at the third stage,” Philippe Boizot said.
It should be noted that this programme is widely implemented in India and Pakistan. There, according to the Foundation’s representative, the mechanism has taken roots. However, European countries act otherwise – they catch stray dogs outdoors and if the animal cannot find new owner within a short time, it is put to sleep.
“European countries do have such law, but in France, for example, there are many centres where a dog can find a new owner. We cannot say that animals are put to sleep immediately,” the Foundation’s representative said.
According to Boizot, if a dog is aggressive or sick, it can be then decided to put it to sleep.
“In Kyrgyzstan, we are planning to establish a committee to decide whether a dog should be sterilised or put to sleep. But this decision must be made by the committee, not one person,” Philippe Boizot said.
Not all animal rights defenders support the innovation
Surprisingly enough, not all animal rights defenders approve of the initiative to sterilise stray dogs. Alla Kobtsova runs a kennel in Bishkek and established the foundation to help stray dogs “Right to life.” Now she has nearly 50 animals. The animal rights defender has rescued dogs that have been knocked over by cars, wounded, sick dogs many times based on information received from city dwellers. But despite her love to animals, Kobtsova said that emotions should not prevail over cold math when it comes to stray dogs. The woman emphasised that people who feed stray animals do not understand that they do more harm than good.
“Soft-hearted citizens create a food supply for dogs. Knowing that there’s food at a certain location, animals gather in packs and begin to mate. Dogs with puppies become aggressive and then people complain that they attack their children, for example,” Kobtsova said.
The founder of the foundation to help stray animals “Right to life” is against chipping because, according to her, there is no guarantee that dogs will feel fine outdoors after the surgery. Moreover, four-footed animals are usually vaccinated simultaneously to save time. However, the single vaccine does not guarantee that the dog won’t get sick in a year and won’t transmit the infection to a bitten person.
“Bishkek is not an isolated city. Stray dogs will always come to the capital city from new residential areas and villages to occupy the emergent food niche. Moreover, dogs get rid of parasites during trapping and sterilisation, and are vaccinated, but the procedure is one-time. Then they can become infected and transmit infections,” Kobtsova said.
The animal rights defender said that “only trapping without return can be an efficient measure” and we need to understand that the state needs shelters for that.
“They cost very much. Therefore, the only way to reduce the dog population is to shoot them,” Kobtsova said.
Only sponsors can help
The situation is that the state has no money even for shelters for homeless people or people in difficult situations, not to speak of shelters for stray animals.
According to the mayor’s office of Bishkek, they are ready for cooperation on this issue with sponsors.
Six years ago, the municipality said (https://www.meria.kg/ru/post/13045) about their willingness to allocate a land plot for an animal shelter.
“It’s a usual thing in the global practice that charity organisations and public foundations open animal shelters. Dog shooting is performed in many countries of the world as it is much needed because there is no money available to construct municipal shelters,” according to the message.