For almost a month now, there has been a harsh campaign against stray dogs by the media. Since some members of the Bucharest ASL issued statements advocating the reinstatement of the law that permitted the killing of strays, the newspapers and the TV have been incessantly showing images of packs of strays and those people bitten throughout the country. In reality, the law has formally prohibited the killing of strays since 2007, but the municipalities have skirted the problem by leaving the dogs, in thousands of public facilities spread throughout the country, to simply die of hunger and disease. The law has only prevented large scale killings, such as those seen before 2007, when strays were killed en masse even in the streets, thanks to the absence of an animal protection law. Since no sterilization plan has been made, the number of dogs has increased exponentially in the meantime and now the public is asking that drastic measures be taken.
The climate of recent weeks brings us back to 2001 when the then mayor of Bucharest, Basescu, launched the campaign that led to the extermination of at least 100,000 stray dogs in the capital alone. STD is extremely worried and fears that the municipalities where it operates will exploit the atmosphere of hysteria and intolerance crafted by the media to undermine our sterilization programs.
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