ENGLAND
Colchester Suspends Stray Dog Collections As Kennel Space Runs Out
Colchester City Council has temporarily suspended its stray dog collection service because of unusually high demand and a lack of available kennel space.
The suspension began on 1 October. People who find a stray dog are currently being advised to check for identification and attempt to contact the owner themselves or, where possible, take the dog to a veterinary practice to be scanned for a microchip.
The situation comes shortly after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published updated guidance setting out local authorities’ responsibilities towards stray and abandoned dogs.
The guidance states that local authorities have a statutory duty to deal with stray dogs in their area. It also says councils should collect reported stray dogs as soon as possible and have arrangements in place for kennelling and out-of-hours provision.
Animal welfare organisations do not have the equivalent statutory responsibility.
Colchester’s suspension highlights a practical problem behind the legislation: a legal responsibility to deal with stray dogs still depends upon sufficient physical capacity to accommodate them.
JAPAN
Government Begins First Nationwide Investigation Of Animal Cafés
Japan has begun its first nationwide survey of animal cafés amid concerns about animal welfare, hygiene and infectious disease.
The Environment Ministry investigation will examine establishments where customers can interact with animals, including cafés keeping dogs and cats as well as those displaying exotic species.
Authorities are gathering information about the number of businesses operating, the species being kept, how animals are housed and managed and the ways in which customers interact with them.
Animal welfare organisations and experts have previously raised concerns about conditions within parts of the industry, while research has identified threatened species being displayed in some establishments.
Japan does not currently have specific welfare standards governing animal cafés as a distinct type of business.
The investigation could therefore provide the government with its first comprehensive national picture of an industry that has expanded considerably and establish evidence for any future regulatory changes.
KENYA
Street Dog Management And Rabies Provision Raised In Kenyan Senate
Concerns about free-roaming dogs and access to rabies treatment in Machakos County have reached Kenya’s Senate.
Machakos Senator Agnes Kavindu has requested a statement from the Senate Standing Committee on Health concerning increasing numbers of roaming dogs in Syokimau and surrounding areas.
The committee has been asked to establish what measures the county government is taking to identify, vaccinate, collect and safely manage free-roaming dogs.
It has also been asked to provide information about dog bites and suspected rabies exposure during the past three years and the number of people who subsequently received post-exposure treatment.
Questions have additionally been raised about whether public health facilities have sufficient supplies of rabies vaccines and whether residents can access treatment promptly and affordably.
The intervention moves concerns about dog population management and rabies prevention in the area into Kenya’s national parliamentary system and could provide greater scrutiny of both animal-management and public-health provision.
INDIA
Kohima Prepares New System For Collecting Free-Roaming Dogs
Authorities in Kohima, Nagaland, are preparing a new system for dealing with dogs roaming freely in the city, with a new dog shelter expected to become operational during October.
Kohima Municipal Council is preparing a regulatory order under which dogs found roaming in public areas can be taken to the shelter by a designated team supported by police and local communities.
Where a dog is found to have an owner, authorities have indicated that the cost of feeding and maintaining the animal at the shelter may be recovered from them.
Officials have also urged owners to vaccinate their dogs and prevent them from roaming freely.
Plans include two vaccination campaigns each year across Kohima’s 19 municipal wards.
The distinction between genuinely unowned dogs and owned dogs permitted to roam is important. Visible street-dog populations can contain both, meaning population management based solely upon removing apparently stray animals may fail to address one of the sources continually adding dogs to public spaces.
GREECE
Amorgos Builds Municipal Shelter And Veterinary Clinic For Stray Animals
The Greek island of Amorgos is completing a new municipal shelter and veterinary clinic intended to provide permanent infrastructure for the care and management of stray animals.
The facility is being developed at Papadies with funding approved through the Greek Ministry of Interior’s PHILODIMOS II programme.
Plans include eight individual kennels for the temporary accommodation of stray dogs as well as separate accommodation for healthy cats and cats suffering from infectious diseases.
The development will also include veterinary facilities and an area where prospective adopters can meet animals.
Providing veterinary infrastructure and separating healthy and infectious animals can improve welfare and disease control, but the longer-term measure of the facility will be what happens to the animals entering it.
Intake numbers, length of stay, available capacity, adoption and other outcomes will therefore be important indicators once the shelter becomes operational.
MALAYSIA
Local Authorities And Welfare Groups Develop New Approach To Street Animals
Local authorities and animal welfare organisations in Malaysia are increasingly working together on programmes intended to improve the management of free-roaming dogs and cats.
The developing approach combines sterilisation and vaccination with adoption, community involvement and greater emphasis on responsible ownership rather than relying solely upon the collection of animals from public spaces.
Malaysia already has national animal welfare legislation through the Animal Welfare Act 2015, but welfare organisations continue to raise concerns about enforcement and the number of cruelty cases progressing to prosecution.
Collaboration between councils and welfare organisations is particularly important because street-animal populations are not created solely by animals reproducing on the street.
Abandonment, owned animals allowed to roam and uncontrolled breeding can continually replenish populations even where sterilisation programmes are operating.
Long-term population management therefore depends upon addressing those sources alongside humane sterilisation, vaccination and care for animals already living on the streets.
End of Bulletin