The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : No space for them at shelter

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 07, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

No space for them at shelter

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: "There are dogs in the van parked outside. There is no space to keep them inside our shelter," said Poornima Harish of Animal Rights Fund.

"We had to turn away one Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) van because we did not have space to keep the dogs," said Dharneesh of Karuna.

In the last three days, the BBMP has caught more than 1,200 dogs. It has roped in a team of 12 expert dogcatchers from the Malabar region to help catch more. But as more and more dogs continue to pour in, it turns out that there simply is no space to house them.

Limited capacity

Dog pounds in the city have limited capacity of about 500 dogs, a top official at the BBMP told The Hindu . While Karuna can house 350 dogs, Krupa and ARF put together can hold 150 dogs. CUPA does not have a dog shelter and they can keep only those dogs that have come for treatment, a functionary of CUPA said.

While the BBMP claims that only the unhealthy and the unsterilised dogs are being caught, a reality check showed that the dogcatchers were simply catching any dog in sight.

"We have not received any directions from the BBMP about what to do with the dogs. We are not ready to cull them as they have been sterilised already. Killing them is useless and would be a waste of the public money we spent on the Animal Birth Control programme," said Ms. Harish.

Plan for dog shelter

Officials at the BBMP said that the civic body had plans to build a dog shelter on government lands elsewhere. But they admitted that the plan might take some time to materialise.

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