From man’s best friend to a major headache for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkey is experiencing an intense debate with political, social, cultural and ethical consequences, with unlikely heroes: stray dogs. For many Turks, they are a very important part of their city, like in Istanbul, where there are authentic “neighborhood dogs” that neighbors look after like collective pets. For others, dogs have become a nuisance and a danger; the government is putting forward a radical measure to put on the table: Either they will find their owners or they will end up being sacrificed.

The debate is served. And it affects more than just dogs.

Farewell to street dogs. Turkish authorities have decided to declare “war” on stray dogs. Or at least status quo where they have been kept for years. At the end of May, Ankara introduced a bill that aims to remove hundreds of thousands of stray dogs from the streets.

The new legislation (which Reuters was already progressing at the time) envisages two major measures: first, moving animals to shelters; second, sacrificing those that are not adopted or adopted after 30 days. The problem is not just the proposal itself, but what it means in a country where strays are common in cities and many municipalities lack direct shelters. Critics of the measure fear that the combination of both factors will lead to a significant proportion of captured dogs being sacrificed.

Impact on the streetsThe intense debate over the measure is evidence of how widespread stray dogs are in Turkish cities. There have been protests and debates since Erdoğan hinted at his plans. The Ankara Bar Association even sent a report to the AKP, chaired by Erdoğan, advocating another solution to control urban colonies that excludes possible mass killings. Their proposal includes an effective neutering campaign.

What do the numbers say? If Erdoğan’s plan is so controversial, it’s not just because of what he proposes. Its enormous impact at home and abroad is also evident in the numbers. There are a lot of animals on the streets in Turkey. A lot. The Turkish press usually talks about 2.8 million stray dogs and 6.6 million pets, mostly cats, roaming freely. Guardian He points out that the number of dogs alone would be around 4 million.

The same figure is a figure that Minister of Agriculture and Forestry İbrahim Yumaklı recently shared via X: “The number of dogs without owners is estimated to be close to 4 million, it is not known for sure why they give birth. they have puppies once or twice a year, up to six or eight, and they change places very frequently. Despite these figures, the Animal Rights Watch Committee HAKİM states that only 260,000 dogs have been neutered per year in recent years, which is “an insufficient number to reduce the total population.”

“We want them to be embraced”. The president assures that the aim of the plan is “to have all animals taken into shelters adopted”. “We believe that if we can achieve this, there will be no need to take the next step”, argues Erdogan. The proposal on the table calls for taking photos of all dogs caught and then publishing them on a website for 30 days, thus facilitating adoption. If the animal leaves the shelter, it will do so with a chip.

But critical voices, such as the Party for the Animals, warn that “only 20 percent of municipalities” have shelters and that there are “major concerns” about the conditions animals live in there. The group also regrets that the Government has “long been trying to change the law on stray dogs and that only ‘fragments’ of its new proposal are currently known, and even that “conflicting information” has emerged.

Critics’ arguments. These are not the only arguments put forward by critics. The newspaper On the scale Citing data from the Animal Rights Federation, it notes that there are no shelters in 1,100 of Turkey’s 1,394 municipalities and that dog ownership is not as common in the country as elsewhere.

Specifically, it allows only 5% of the population to have a dog as a pet, compared to 21% in Germany or 23% in the UK. The reason: costs, the size of houses, the lack of parks, and also a cultural issue. The Party for the Animals accepts that the proliferation of dogs on the streets poses a risk of infection and risks to animals, but questions whether it effectively favors other solutions that would prevent victims, such as neutering.

The man himself explains: “According to scientists, if 70% of the dog population is neutered within a year, it can be controlled. However, in the last 5 years, we have only reached an average of 260,000 and a maximum of 350,000 in a year.” Yumaklı.

“We want streets without dogs!” Not everyone is pessimistic about the government’s decision to end urban colonies. On the scale He reinforces that on X you can find videos of people showing attacks by aggressive dogs or traffic accidents allegedly caused by stray dogs. He notes that his slogan is “We want streets without dogs!” This idea is largely reflected in Erdoğan’s message on May 29. Erdoğan acknowledged that Turkey has “a stray dog ​​problem that no other developed country has” and that it needs to take “more radical measures.” BT.

The president spoke in a similar vein after a 10-year-old child was seriously attacked by a stray dog ​​at the end of 2023. The government complements its argument with two more arguments: first, the risk of rabies transmission; second, the claim that collisions with animals have caused around 3,500 traffic accidents in just five years.

According to state media, 83.6 percent of those polled believe that stray dogs are becoming a problem, but another report concluded that only 2.7 percent support a control measure such as culling the animals. The truth is that in places like Istanbul, dogs have become real icons, with well-known dogs like Boji starring in documentaries and likely to be seen on ferries and trains in 2021.

Images | Cthrough (Unsplash) and Yanuka Deneth (Unsplash)

At Xataka | Someone decided to create an airline for dogs: It’s called Bark Air and it just launched its first flight