In Kerala, dogs are no longer man's best friend

Dogs are considered to be man's best friend. But, in India's southern-most state, Kerala, the canines aren't in the good books of people anymore. The state, for quite some time now, has been dealing with the rising number of dog bite cases every year.

Today (October 12), the Supreme Court of India heard a petition relating to the menace of stray dogs in Kerala. Justice Sanjiv Khanna and JK Maheshwari, hearing the petition, said: "All of us are dog lovers but if there's a problem, it has to be dealt with." 

Six years back, in 2016, the SC had called on the Kerala government to tackle the problem of stray dogs, as it was very serious issue in the state. There were several instances of dog bites, deaths due to dog attacks, especially attcks on children and people started culling the dogs themselves.

After all these years, the problem still exists in the state. On September 5, 2022, a 12-year-old girl died weeks after she was bitten by a dog. She had also taken three jabs of anti-rabies vaccine but she died. In fact, In September alone, 30 separate instances of dog bites were reported from Kerala.

What the numbers say: As per the government data, there are around 2,90,000 strays in Kerala which is not even in list of top 10 Indian states.

But in terms of dog bites incidents, Kerala is on the sixth position, reporting nearly 100,000 cases in the first seven months of 2022, double from previous year.

How are the people dealing with this?

• Fed up with the dog bites, people have started killing the strays. In one such incident, in the Kottayam district of Kerala, a canine was beaten to death and then publicly hung. This was not the only incident as several canines were fed posioned meat in some areas.
• Last year, even when the dog bite cases were not so much in the news, a dog was brutally beaten to death at Adimalathura beach in Thiruvananthapuram and hundreds of canines were also poisoned to death in the Thrikkakara Municipality of Ernakulam.

What animal rights organisations have to say:

• Animal welfare organisations like Daya and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) are sceptical about the government claims regarding the number of animal birth control centres and said that they only exist on paper.
• They also have been saying that killing of dogs is not the solution just because few of them have bitten humans. They said that the solution was the proper implementation of animal birth control (ABC) measures.
• One reason given by the animal welfare organisation is the improper disposal of garbage resulting in dogs frequenting such places for food.

  

   

Kerala governemnt faces dilemma:

• The Kerala government had approached the SC in September 2022 to seek permission for culling of vicious, violent rabid dogs. The state rules allow the killing of dogs that are violent or rabid but no culling is being undertaken currently as it is against the rules of central government.
• As per the central rules, the rabid dogs are to be kept in isolation till they die rather than culling them.
• The government has also announced slew of measures including vaccinating stray dogs from September 20 to October 20 and opening more animal birth control centres.