Mersin Metropolitan Municipality has published plenty of numbers about its work with stray animals since Türkiye’s amended animal protection law came into force. Thousands of dogs have been sterilised, thousands have been adopted and substantial new capacity has been created to accommodate animals. On the surface there is a considerable amount of information available. Look a little more closely, however, and one important part of the picture is still missing. We do not know how many dogs entered the system or what happened to all of those that did not leave through adoption.
Since 2 August 2024, Mersin says 8,111 dogs have been sterilised and 2,425 dogs have been adopted. Those are significant figures and the adoptions in particular represent a clear & welcome outcome. More than two thousand dogs have left municipal care for homes. What we cannot do is subtract the adoption figure from the sterilisation figure and assume that the remainder are still being held. Some dogs may already have been sterilised when they arrived, the two figures may represent different groups of animals and there may be other movements through the system that are not visible in the published totals.
The figures for cats illustrate the difference particularly well. Mersin reports that 10,863 cats were sterilised and 9,037 were returned to their communities. There is an identifiable route through the system. Cats were treated and thousands subsequently left municipal care through return. For dogs that route has changed. Türkiye’s amended law ended the previous model under which sterilised dogs could routinely be returned to the places from which they had been collected. Dogs removed from the streets are now expected to remain within shelters and designated so called natural living areas unless they are adopted.
Mersin has been building the infrastructure to accommodate that change. At Kaşlı, the municipality reports capacity for 2,000 animals within the care centre and another 5,000 within the natural living area. Patiköy was created as part of this new approach, providing a larger environment where dogs can be housed and made available for adoption. Mersin describes investment in feeding and watering systems, cooling pools and provision for elderly and disabled animals. These details help us understand what has been built and how the municipality says the animals are being cared for. What they still do not tell us is how many dogs are actually there.
That becomes increasingly important when dogs can no longer leave the system through return. Every dog collected must have another outcome. Some will be adopted. Some will remain in shelters. Some will live within so called natural living areas. Some will need long term veterinary care. Some will die from illness or other causes and some may be euthanised where the law permits it. There may also be transfers between facilities. Whatever happens, each dog has gone somewhere and the records should be capable of showing where.
Mersin therefore gives us a useful example of the difference between reporting activity and reporting outcomes. We know 8,111 dogs were sterilised. We know 2,425 dogs were adopted. We know thousands of places have been created within the municipal care system. What we do not have alongside those figures is the total number of dogs collected since the law changed, the number currently being held across Mersin’s facilities, the number that have died, the number euthanised or the number transferred elsewhere.
None of that means those outcomes have not been recorded internally and their absence from the information currently available should not be interpreted as evidence that dogs have been harmed or disappeared. Mersin is actually publishing more information than we see from many parts of the wider system. That makes the remaining gap more noticeable because so much of the framework is already there.
Before the law changed, thousands of dogs could move through municipal care and return to their communities. Mersin’s own earlier reporting recorded dogs being returned after treatment and sterilisation. Once that exit route was removed, the need for outcome reporting became greater. A growing population of collected dogs cannot simply be measured by how many procedures were performed or how much capacity was created. We also need to know how many dogs remain within that capacity and how many have left it.
Türkiye is undertaking a national collection programme in which enormous emphasis has been placed on getting dogs off the streets. The Interior Minister has said that 97% of stray animals have been collected, yet the absolute number behind that percentage and detailed national outcomes have not been made clear. At municipal level, the same basic principle applies. Collection tells us that a dog entered the system. It does not tell us what happened next.
Mersin’s figures provide an opportunity to see what better reporting could look like because many of the building blocks already exist. If animals entering municipal care are registered and their treatment recorded, it should be possible to follow those records through to an eventual outcome. We should be able to know how many dogs were collected, how many were adopted, how many remain in each facility, how many were transferred and how many died or were euthanised.
Mersin can tell us about thousands of sterilisations. It can tell us about thousands of adoptions. It can tell us about thousands of places created to accommodate animals. These are all meaningful figures, but they measure different parts of the system and cannot be joined together without the information in between.
For the 2,425 dogs that were adopted, we have an outcome.
For the dogs still living within Mersin’s shelters and natural living areas, there should also be an outcome we can see: they are there, they are alive and they remain under municipal care. The question is how many there are. Because once dogs are collected and can no longer be returned to the streets, knowing how many went into the system is only half of the account.
We also need to know where they are now.