Bhutan declares its entire street dog population fully sterilized and vaccinated

[weinzierl]

Congratulations! Rabies is such a scary disease but these vaccination campaigns do work. Germany, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria and the Czech Republic became officially rabies free in 2003 after many years of vaccinating wild foxes and all the red rabies warning signs of my childhood are finally gone.

[progbits]

Vaccination campaigns are great but can you explain how you can declare countries rabies free without doing the same for their land neighbors?

Last time I checked there were no border checks for foxes crossing from France, Poland etc. :)

Is the assumption they don't have suitable habitats outside those countries? Or how do you stop backsliding?

[tibbydudeza]

Did they not carpet bomb the forests with pre-vaxxed chicken heads ???. Rabies is terrible - dead man walking.

[stef25]

Quite the achievement. Many years ago on a Thai beach there were a few stray dogs and the locals said one was called "Balls" because he was the only one that they couldn't sterilize. Every time the vet arrived Balls would smell him a mile away and just bolt, disappearing for a few hours.

[cheschire]

It's sunrise and a vet stands at the edge of a parking lot, at the top of a short flight of stairs leading down to the beach below. Off in the distance a few hundred meters away, a dog jogs off down the empty beach. The vet, arms hanging by his side and feeling dejected, simply says "Balls..." and turns away.

[autoexec]

That was an amazing achievement, treating something like 10,000 dogs a year for 15 years! Now that the initiative has ended I hope that some form it continues since maintaining a sterilized and vaccinated population will be a lot easier and less expensive than waiting until things get out of hand again. Outsiders wandering in and escaped pets turned strays have the potential to undo much of their great work.

[wirrbel]

I mean as long as they don't start again too late it should be fine, right? For now, if they catch a dog the chances are high its already treated. So the return of reward is comparably low. Once the unvaccinated/unsterilized population has grown again, it makes sense again to get active. The point would be to not restart again too late.

[shiroiuma]

I don't get it. Why not just euthanize them? Surely that would be cheaper than sterilizing and vaccinating them all, and the benefits would be seen sooner.

[wirrbel]

Older cartoons of the west often feature (primarily as a villain) the "dog catcher".

[autoexec]

Usually in cartoons the dogs were simply taken to the pound, which was depicted as being basically "jail for dogs", but I suspect that most of the animals picked up off the street by dog catchers didn't spend a lot of time behind bars.

[badrabbit]

I hate this so much. Humans are a disease when considering only things like this.

What authority does any human have to neuter animals at random? Why? Because they will suffer? The kick them out to the wild if you don't want to see their suffering, let them adapt to there.

Few things disgust me more than cruelty disguised as kindness. You can own an animal, you can kill one but only for food or clothing and other survival needs but no one has the right mutilate animals and leave them to linger on.

The problem is humans now have weapons, pesticide and tech to fight off things animals would have helped is with and this is our response. You don't need sterlisarion and kill shelters, animals either starve to death or adapt and move out to areas where they can find food/prey. If you are worried about the ecosystem in a city, donate to a zoo so you can look at whatever animals you want, humans and their pets decimating a city's ecosystem is a natural outcome of the human-animal ecosystem! Our insistence in regulating ecosystems is what is unnatural. Leave the animals be, get comfortable with strays in your city like some cities already are (istanbul and i hear rome too).

[stef25]

Have you been to Asia and seen the state that most of those dogs are in ? You aren't doing them any favors by letting them reproduce.

Dogs won't go off in to the wild by themselves, they are social animals and like being around people. Not in the least because they receive left over food and get more out of the trash. But they receive very little health care.

Not many people are bothered by them. This is all for the benefit of the animal, not us humans. IMHO.

[krowek]

Not every place on Earth has the same weather through the year as those countries you mention. Dogs aren't really animals born to live in the wild, if a dog has to go through really extreme temperatures, has no food or water, isn't that pain and suffering as well?

[UniverseHacker]

It is extremely cruel to neuter an adult male dog and release it. They will have fatigue, lethargy, and weakness that will slowly kill them. They lose all “fight,” energy, and will to live. It is nothing like neutering a dog before it matures.

A family member had my dog neutered without my permission while watching him him for me, and his rapid decline and death were heartbreaking…. Euthanasia is much less cruel.

[seattle_spring]

It's widely known to wait until a dog is fully grown before sterilization nowadays. Getting them neutered or spayed as a puppy tends to lead to more widespread bone problems, especially hip displasia.

Do you have any literature that supports what you are claiming?

[resolutebat]

This is quite an achievement, especially considering the magnitude of the street dog population in all neighboring countries (India, Nepal, Tibet).

[sMarsIntruder]

> There are approximately 300 million street dogs across Asia

Didn’t expect that number honestly.

[csomar]

Asia has 4.5 billion humans. So that works out around 15 persons per dog. Seems quite spot-on given that these dogs will eat on leftovers and whatever humans throw to them. I wonder if they derived the number that way (highly doubt they are id-ing all these dogs).

[sinuhe69]

Compared to “only” 500 millions pigs, the number of dogs is astounding. No wonder many countries also use them as food.

[antonyt]

The post title feels grammatically off in a way I'm struggling to articulate. I think it's the difference between "declares <object> <adjective>" and "declares that <clause>".

Examples of the former:

  - Researchers declare food unhealthy.

  - Invaders declare territory theirs.

I think my problem is that the former is used in contexts that are either subjective or abstract, whereas the latter is just and indication that somebody has said something.

When you declare <thing> <attribute>, you are making an assertion with some implicit authority. When you declare that <event has happened>, you are simply making an announcement.

[curation]

Tblisi Georgia does this as well. The dogs are ear tagged and are sort of like the community pets.

[jsbisviewtiful]

Wow - great on them! At first I was saddened at the idea of sterilizing that many animals but on further reading the article estimates there are 300 million street dogs across Asia... That's a hard number to swallow.

[_giorgio_]

Why do you even need to have a street dog population?

[hrkucuk]

I don't know about Bhutan but street animals (mostly dogs & cats) is very common in Turkiye. From cultural point of view we see them as real residents of the place, we are taking up their land. So we are committed to treat them and feel responsible for their care as well. From a practical point of view, like other commentators suggested, they take care of the habitat - cats prevent rodents from going overpopulated etc. And they are cute and friendly and nice to have around!

[alephnerd]

In India, it's because a very prominent MP (and aunt of INC Rahul Gandhi / daughter in law of former PM Indira Gandhi) in the BJP is a massive dog lover and militantly opposed to regulating the stray population. [0][1]

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_for_Animals

[1] - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/retired-doct...

[2] - https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/060323/...

[samus]

Countries for sure aren't like "Let's have a population of rabid stray dogs. Wouldn't it be nice". Although they can be useful as they get rid of animal carcasses on the streets. But they have to be taken care of, else there numbers become overwhelming and they might pick up and spread rabies.

[vbezhenar]

Nobody's need to have street dog population, it just happens and requires significant resources to deal with.

[paulluuk]

Are you asking where stray dogs come from?

[masteruvpuppetz]

so in ~5 years time, no street dogs in Bhutan???

[INTPenis]

That's impossible. Because where do street dogs come from? They come from homes. As long as dogs exist there will be street dogs.

But at least they got a huge leg up on the problem.

[ars]

The article says they've been doing it for 15 years, so there's something odd about their numbers.

[unsupp0rted]

I wish Turkey would do this too. Street dogs gather in packs and periodically attack people: not just small children, they go after grown men and women who are just walking down the street during daylight hours. This is true in major cities, like Ankara.

When I’m there I avoid walking around after sunset or in areas without people, primarily because I don’t want to be stuck in the open with 3 or 4 hungry street dogs hunting me.

[nwiswell]

> Street dogs gather in packs and periodically attack people: not just small children, they go after grown men and women who are just walking down the street during daylight hours.

This happened to me at night in Istanbul 10 years ago. I was walking down a side street and a pack of 5-6 dogs noticed me and began to follow me. At first they were tentative, but increasingly the bolder ones in the group closed the distance. I began moving more quickly, but stepping backward, facing the dogs.

They clearly had violence on their minds. By the time I was approaching a well-lit main street, I had been lunged at a dozen times, with each dog only thinking better of it at the last instant.

I only had a backpack which I could use as a blunt weapon, and if the other dogs joined in following a strike from one of the boldest, I was not at all confident in the outcome. Easily one of the scariest experiences of my life.

[INTPenis]

In Thailand street dogs have learned to fear the sound of an electric tazer.

I used to live there and always carried one with me, just to activate it was enough to scare them off.

I remember once being awake at night, sick with some flu, and a street dog just would not stop barking. I hear a gate/window open, a tazer activates and the dog stops. So this was just a guy sticking his hand out a window and activating the tazer to get the dog to shut up.

It's a hard life out there for those dogs.

[signal11]

This happens in India[1,2] too, and rabies cases are sadly all too common there, so I applaud Bhutan for its success.

Are there any lessons for other countries in what Bhutan has achieved?

Eg for India a concern is: even with a real effort it’ll be difficult just given the size of the place and the routes available for other dogs to move in.

Then there’s massively underfunded local government and corruption to consider (and harder to fix). Charities do what they can but it’s a drop in the ocean.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/01/india/india-stray-dog-attack-...

[2] https://scroll.in/article/1056464/why-is-india-seeing-so-muc...

[_v7gu]

They already do? If you see a dog that has their ear marked, it means the dog has been sterilized by the municipality. If you want to help, you can take ant stray dog to a vet and they will sterilize the dog for free.

The real problem is the “people” who attack the dogs for no reason and teach them to be violent. Dogs are very social animals and they learn to respond to the society they are in. Where I live the biggest problem we have with stray dogs is we feel sorry for some of them being obese.

[Lutger]

I remember being chased by a pack of at least twenty angry wild dogs. This was in India, not a fun experience.

[tibbydudeza]

I thought it was a cat nation since the prophet had one and dogs are considered unclean in Muslim tradition.

[jl6]

100% is a big achievement in street dog unavailability - much harder than, say, 99.999%. In k-nines (un)availability, the cost usually increases by 10 * k to increment k by 1.

It's tempting to imagine that they didn't actually get to 100%, and there are some hidden holdouts who have escaped the program and will re-establish the street dog population covertly.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Yeah I'm not sure how they would even know if it's 100% vs 99.999%

[the_common_man]

> k-nines

Intentional pun? :)

[smegsicle]

next up the street rats

[psunavy03]

My brain spent about 2.5 seconds wondering how the hell you spay or neuter a rat before giving up.

[ars]

I know yours is a joke comment, but without the dogs eating the food (the garbage), some other animal is going to eat it instead. I predict an explosion of rats in another decade.

[vidarh]

Easier to get people to agree to sterilisation than a cull, I suspect, but sterilisation also has one other effect: It reduces the rate of reproduction of unsterilised animals in same population, who will be less and less likely to stumble upon an unsterilised mate.

[altacc]

A factor could have been that Bhutan's population is mostly Buddhist & Hindu, with a relatively high number of vegetarians, so a cull would be objected to for religious reasons as well as the normal "people love dogs" reasons.

[samus]

Culling them only frees up space for stray dogs from the wild (dunno how far Bhutan went to track them down in the woods) or from other countries.

[paganel]

It’s going to be just us and the pod in the not so distant feature, no need for other forms of being in the world to be around us.

And then people will keep posting about their depression medication and about increasing suicide rates.

[Etheryte]

You should try actually reading the linked article, what they've done is good both for us and for the dogs. Unless you like dogs who are malnourished, unfed and have rabies.