Friday, March 7, 2008

Indian City Aims to Poison 100,000 Stray Dogs

Authorities in Indian Kashmir have begun poisoning stray dogs in an anti-rabies drive that aims to kill some hundred thousand dogs in the region's main city, Srinagar, officials said Thursday.

Animal rights activists vowed to go to court to stop the slaughter, saying it is an illegal and cruel solution to a problem that could be better addressed with other methods.

With the world's highest rabies fatality rate, India has grappled with ways to control the millions of stray dogs that live on its streets.

In Srinagar, city officials vowed to press ahead with the plan already under way to poison strays with strychnine.

"These dogs have become a big nuisance and they are threatening humans," said Riyaz Ahmad, the Srinagar city health officer who is organizing the killing.

It was not clear Thursday how many dogs have already been killed.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Check wikipedia. Apparently strychnine poisoning is one of the most painful ways to die. Sounds unnecessarily cruel and I wonder how fast this stuff breaks down or whether it will get into the food and water supply and painfully kill many people too.

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