Street by Street: Turkey’s Dangerous Dog Hunt
This week, another chilling directive has emerged, this time from Muğla. After Istanbul, Muğla’s Nature Conservation and National Parks Directorate has ordered municipalities to conduct a street-by-street dog census.
On paper, it may sound like a simple survey. In reality, it is the continuation of a campaign that animal advocates rightly call a dog hunt.
A Threat Disguised as Bureaucracy
By recruiting municipal police, sanitation staff, and even village mukhtars who have no legal authority in animal welfare the state is enlisting unqualified actors in what looks alarmingly like an orchestrated round-up.
When the law sets a pet registration deadline of December 2025, why then are municipalities already threatening fines, seizures, and worse?
The only explanation is that this is not about order or legality. It is about control, intimidation, and ultimately elimination.
The Politics of Fear
These circulars are not neutral administrative tools.
They create a climate of fear: neighbours turning on neighbours, pet owners terrified of losing their companions, street dogs seen not as lives but as “problems” to be solved.
The state is manufacturing social tension where none need exist.
A Violation of Rights
This policy runs counter not only to Turkeys Animal Protection Law, but also to the Constitution, which guarantees both a healthy environment and the protection of life.
It ignores the law’s own deadlines, undermines municipal responsibilities, and hands sensitive tasks to untrained individuals. It is, in every sense, arbitrary power dressed as governance.
The Moral Question
Even if the state could argue legality, it cannot argue morality.
Dogs are not pests. They are sentient beings who have lived alongside humans for thousands of years.
The answer to Turkey’s street dog issue is not violence, not forced removals, not “collection camps.”
It is sterilization, vaccination, adoption, and community support.
Where This Ends
Civil society is united: 35 organizations have already condemned this directive.
But the deeper question is this - if the government can so easily erode the rights of animals, what stops it from eroding the rights of people?
An assault on the most vulnerable is always a warning sign for society at large.
The so-called “dog census” is not a harmless tally.
It is the prelude to mass suffering. We must name it for what it is: a hunt. And we must stop it before the streets of Muğla, like Istanbul, are emptied not of problems, but of innocent lives.