New Delhi, May 19: The Supreme Court today has rightly acknowledged that the current community dog population is attributable wholly to consistent institutional failure at every level to implement the Animal Birth Control Rules since 2001.
PETA India commits to exploring legal remedies and appealing to authorities for resources to be focused on the implementation of the Animal Birth Control Rules and for better sense to prevail regarding the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) SOP and any killing of dogs.
The AWBI SOP that the court has upheld recommends rounding up community dogs from various places and jailing them for life in enclosures of 20 square feet per animal—approximately the size of a traditional funeral pyre – a fitting metaphor as incarcerating dogs in these shelters is tantamount to sentencing them to death.
PETA India has long warned caging dogs like this would institutionalise cruelty, increase the risk of zoonotic and other disease, divert public resources away from the requirements of the Animal Birth Control Rules 2023 that is sterilisation and vaccination against rabies and inevitably collapse under its own weight.
With an estimated 62 million free-roaming dogs in India, there is no infrastructure, funding, or administrative capacity to confine even a fraction of the population without causing mass suffering and public-health risks.
PETA India has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, states and union territories and the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) submitting two detailed science-based Roadmaps that are grounded in the principles of Ahimsa and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, offering humane and effective solutions for managing India’s community dog and stray cow populations while strongly opposing proposals that rely on lifelong jailing of animals in overcrowded and underfunded facilities or any killing of dogs indiscriminately labelled “aggressive”.
