Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has advised Kerala to consider sterilising stray dogs instead of culling.
A day after the Kerala cabinet said it will cull 'dangerous' stray dogs in the state, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi has offered an alternative. Ms Gandhi, who is a well-known animal rights activist has suggested that the Kerala administration should sterilize stray dogs, rather than kill them.
"All I want is for people of Kerala to be protected. If you do what the rest of India is doing then it will help. The solution is to sterilize strays. Wherever sterilization is taking place, the ratio of dogs to humans is settling down," Ms Gandhi said today. She added, "If you keep making the same mistake, and blaming Maneka Gandhi, it won't work."
To support her suggestions Ms Gandhi quoted from a World Health Organisation study that said the more dogs are killed, the more ferocious they become. She also said that the WHO study was the same study based on which Supreme Court framed rules regarding animal birth control programs.
A recent spike in the incidence of strays biting people in Kerala has put pressure on the state government to act. Last week a 65 year old woman was killed by a pack of strays on a public beach in the state. The government had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for her family. But this failed to calm growing public anger on the issue.
Kerala however is behind states such as Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand which have done much more than merely setting aside funds for animal birth control programs. Uttarakhand recently opened three animal sterilization centres with state of the art facilities.