Ankara’s Stray Animal Feeding Ban Faces Legal Challenge: Starvation Is Not a Solution

Today, at the meeting of the Ankara Provincial Directorate’s Provincial Animal Protection Board, a shocking decision was made. Under agenda item no. 4 Prevention of Uncontrolled Feeding members voted by majority to ban the public from giving food to stray animals.

In other words, people are now prohibited from feeding homeless cats and dogs within Ankara. The decision is already facing a legal challenge and rightly so.

A Law That Protects Life Now Ignored

The primary purpose of Law No. 5199 on Animal Protection is clear:
to protect animals’ right to life and ensure their welfare.

Article 14 of the same law explicitly prohibits the intentional mistreatment of animals, including leaving them hungry and neglecting their care.

Furthermore, Law No. 7332 (Clause 5/m) clearly states that feeding, caring for, protecting, and treating stray animals is the primary duty of municipalities.

When these two provisions are read together, the implications are undeniable:
preventing the feeding of stray animals is not only unethical but also unlawful.
It constitutes an indirect form of torture a cruel neglect that will cause immense suffering and death

Starvation Is a Slow Death

It must not be forgotten that starving a living being is another form of killing it.

For a cat, six hours without food in the freezing Ankara winter can be fatal.
For a dog, seventeen hours without nourishment or hydration can lead to organ failure, hypothermia, and death.

In the scorching summer months, lack of access to water means agonising deaths by dehydration.
There is no “humane” way to let an animal starve it is a deliberate, prolonged act of cruelty.

What Happens When Stray Animals Are No Longer Fed?

When feeding stops, the collapse is immediate and catastrophic:

• Cats and dogs begin to roam wider distances in desperate search of food, leading to more road accidents and injuries.

• Weak, sick, and elderly animals - those most dependent on human kindness die first, often unseen in backstreets and under cars.

• Starvation weakens the immune system, allowing disease outbreaks to spread rapidly, including zoonotic illnesses.

• Puppies and kittens left without nourishment perish within days, their mothers unable to produce milk.

• And as hunger intensifies, animals become more visible, venturing into bins, markets, and schools not because they are aggressive but because they are starving.

Far from solving a problem, a feeding ban creates one: suffering on the streets, public distress, and the breakdown of community coexistence with urban wildlife.

Legal and Moral Responsibility

The decision taken in Ankara contradicts Turkish animal protection law, international humane standards, and the moral conscience of society.

The organisations and individuals present at the meeting have formally recorded their objection to this decision and announced plans to appeal to the judiciary for its annulment.

Feeding bans are not solutions they are orders for silent deaths.

The humane, lawful path forward is not to punish life, but to regulate and protect it:
to ensure regular feeding points, veterinary care, sterilisation, and collaboration between citizens and municipalities.

Compassion Is Not a Crime

Every morsel of food offered to a stray animal, is an act of compassion, one that reflects the best of humanity.

The citizens of Ankara should never be criminalised for caring for the voiceless.
Because a society that forbids kindness loses its moral compass.