A Systemic Failure in Manisa Harms Dogs
Recent images circulating from a site reportedly tied to the Manisa Metropolitan Municipality have laid bare a grim reality: stray dogs standing in deep mud, shivering in the cold, exhausted, filthy, and visibly unwell.
These animals are not sheltered they are abandoned in a place that cannot reasonably be called a shelter at all.
But the story behind these images is even more disturbing than the images themselves.
A Chain of Decisions That Led to Suffering
What we now know is this:
The governorship ordered the immediate collection of stray dogs, insisting that the process begin without delay.
The official shelter was not ready, lacking the conditions required to house the dogs in compliance with the law.
Despite this, rather than postponing collection until the shelter was fit for use, a private company was rapidly contracted to collect the animals.
This is the turning point that created today’s disaster.
Dogs were collected urgently but nowhere humane was prepared to take them.
The result is exactly what the video reveals: animals dumped into swamp-like pens, exposed to the elements, left without clean water, hygiene, dry ground, veterinary care, or even the minimal protection required to keep them alive and healthy.
A Shelter in Name Only
What is happening in Manisa cannot be excused as “temporary inconvenience” or “overcrowding.”
These conditions demonstrate the absence of the most basic requirements of a shelter:
Dry and safe housing
Hygiene and sanitation
Access to clean drinking water
Protection from cold and rain
Veterinary oversight and treatment
None of these are being met.
This is not inadequate sheltering this is the failure to shelter at all.
It is a violation not only of humane practice but of the animals’ fundamental right to life and welfare.
The Cost of Outsourcing Without Oversight
Compounding the issue, local reports have revealed that the private firm contracted for collection receives payment per dog collected.
When stray collection becomes a quota-based operation, and sheltering conditions are ignored, the process turns into a conveyor belt of suffering: dogs are swept off the streets only to enter environments where they are left to deteriorate, unseen and unprotected.
Even more concerning: the municipality has distanced itself, stating that the contractor has nothing to do with them, even though the collection happened under governmental instruction. This blurs responsibility to the point where no authority appears to be accountable, while the animals pay the price.
Where Are the Oversight Bodies?
Animal Protection Law requires municipalities to ensure proper sheltering, veterinary care, and humane conditions.
Outsourcing collection does not dissolve that responsibility.
The law is unequivocal: if animals are collected, they must be placed in shelters that meet minimum welfare standards.
In Manisa, this obligation was ignored first by demanding rapid collection, then by admitting the shelter was unprepared, then by pushing the task onto a contractor without ensuring proper facilities existed.
This is not a bureaucratic mistake. It is systemic neglect.
A Call for Transparency and Accountability
What has unfolded in Manisa is a perfect example of how rushed political decisions, lack of planning, and opaque outsourcing can combine to create severe, avoidable animal suffering.
Dog Desk Animal Action calls for:
An immediate investigation into the conditions at all facilities used to house collected dogs in Manisa.
Full transparency on the contracts, payments, and obligations of the private company involved.
Inspection and enforcement by municipal and national authorities as required under animal welfare law.
A halt to further collections until humane, legally compliant shelter space is available.
Clear assignment of responsibility between governorship, municipality, and contractors so that no animal falls through the cracks of bureaucracy again.
This Is Not an Isolated Case
What is happening in Manisa exposes the dangerous consequences of prioritising rapid collection over responsible care.
When animals are swept away without a plan, they do not become safer they simply disappear into suffering.
A humane society does not look away from this.
And neither will we.
Every dog deserves shelter, safety, dignity and compassion not a muddy pen under a cold sky. This can never be accepted.