The Romanian government has given the green-light to the
mass killing of tens and thousands of stray dogs in the country's capital, The
Associated Press reports.
The move comes after a 4-year-old boy was attacked and
killed while playing outside a park with his older brother. In 2011, a woman
was mauled to death by a pack of strays.
The law allows the state to round up the city's estimated 60,000 strays and have them put down. Despite hundreds of protesters urging parliamentarians to vote against it, the law was overwhelmingly approved -- by a vote of 266 to 23.
"We want a civilized capital, we don't want a
jungle," Adina Suiu, a hairdresser in Bucharest told AP. "When I walk
around my neighborhood, I am always looking over my shoulder. If we don't stop
them now, we will be taken over by dogs."
Gabriel Paun, director for animal rights group 4Pfoten, told
BBC News, a nation-wide sterilization strategy is necessary to control the
burgeoning dog population.
"In the last few years we've castrated 100,000 dogs in
Romania altogether, 10,600 of them in Bucharest," he said. "But it's
not enough, this is a voluntary private project -- we need them to do the same
thing at national level."
According to rescue group Any Dog, the cost of killing a
street dog may be considerably higher than sterilizing it.
The city of some two million people shares its public spaces
with an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 stray dogs -- a number that has ballooned
since the fall of communism in 1989.
A Bucharest hospital spokesman told The Associated Press
9,760 people have been treated for dog bites in the first eight months of this
year.
Volunteering for a rescue can be a very rewarding
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the street into a loving home is probably the best feeling in the world.
There are many ways you can volunteer. These include Home-checking, Transporting, Fostering, Fund Raising, Phone Support and Email Support to name a few.
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