Corpn launches drive to sterilise strays in city

In a much-needed move to relieve the public from the stray dog menace in several wards of the civic body, the city Corpora-tion has planned to launch a sterilisation drive to neuter at least 1,300 stray dogs this fiscal. The entire process, from trapping the animal at the public place and let-ting them at the same location after completing sterilisation process, as instructed by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), has been outsourced to a The-ni-based private trust. The infra-structure of Tiruchy Corporation, including shelters and dog catching vehicles, would be used for the same. Sources involved in maintaining the stray dogs said that at least 8,000 canines
are identified as stray, loitering in the 65 wards classified under the four zones of the Corporation.

Claiming that no cases of rabies infected dogs have been reported in the city limits, the civic body en-trusted Animal Welfare and Rural Development Trust (AWARD) to catch at least 1,300 stray dogs as part of ca-nine birth control practice, this fiscal. "We will be catching the stray
dogs by lasso method as in-structed by the AWBI. After catching the canines, the sterilisation process would be conducted at the dog shelter in Palakkarai, which has a capacity to sterilise a maxi-mum of 150 dogs per month. Soon after the process is com-pleted, including the post-surgery protocols, the dogs would be let free in the same location where they were caught," said M P Radhakrishnan, Ex-ecutive Director of AWARD, to Express.

Corporation sources said that the process is likely to kick off by August 16, and based on the inputs from the Corporation, the private trust, utilising the two dog-catching ve-hicles would trap dogs safely, for sterilisation from vicinity where the populace of stray dogs are high. Similarly, post the surgeries, male dogs would be monitored in the kennels for three days and while it's five days for the female dogs. "Post the surgery, we would monitor the healing tendency of the sterilised dogs. During the same period, anti-rabies vaccine would also be ad-ministered. To identify that the dogs that have been sterilised, a notch would be marked in the right ear-," he added. The drive will go on for 8-10 months.
Limited dog shelters, a let down Since the civic body has only one dog shelter equipped to conduct sterilisation , sources said that only 100-150 dogs could be sterilised in a month. If provided with more shelters in the city, the pace of sterilising the stray dogs could be increased. At present, the government hospital here has been witnessing around 20 dog bite cases in a month, of which three to five cases are reported to be stray dog bites, said sources.
Localities vulnerable ■ EPudur • Thillai Nagar ■ Subrarnaniapuram ■ Tiruverumbur
■Source :epaper. . newindianexpress. com//c/21238