aaaaa A stray dog roams the street outside my apartment in Artemovsk, Ukraine. Photo by BriAnne Wills.
A teacher I work with told me a story this morning. A young student was waiting for her mother to pick her up from school. While waiting for her mother to arrive, she noticed a group of men chasing down a dog. Curious to see what was happening, she followed them around the corner to the back of the school. There, as two men held the dog down, a third shot and killed it at point blank range.
Ukraine has a serious stray dog problem. Some cities have tens of thousands of strays running around. Recently, ahead of Euro 2012, Ukraine’s been trying to eradicate the stray dog problem by killing them, often times using a gun, but occasionally by poisoning. Actual figures regarding how many have been killed thus far are hard to come by, but estimates are near 10,000.
zzz Stray dogs at play in Kiev, Ukraine.
Animal rights groups, including the Ukrainian Association of Animal Protection Organizations, have decried the killings. In a story reported in The Huffington Post back in October, the organization’s head, Asya Serpinska, called the situation in Ukraine ”a slaughterhouse.”
Last Friday a group of citizen activists met with city officials to discuss such killings of stray dogs in my eastern city of Artemovsk. Speaking with one of these activists this morning, I learned that the city agreed to put an end to the action and instead build shelters to house the strays.
And just today The Associated Press reported that the Ukrainian government has ordered the killing of stray dogs throughout the country to cease immediately.
From the story:
Ukraine has called for an end to the killing of stray dogs ahead of the Euro 2012 soccer championship next summer, bending to pressure from Western critics.
The Environment Ministry said Thursday it has urged all the country’s mayors to stop euthanizing dogs ahead of the June soccer matches and build animal shelters instead.
The move is a big win for animal rights activists, not to mention stray dogs. Still, some people here have doubts that the order will be upheld and the shelters built. The same teacher that told me the story about the young student who witnessed the killing of a stray dog told me she has trouble believing the promises of government officials. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said.
Desperate situation, but not at all surprising. When I was in Kyiv last summer I watched the strays trundle through the streets wondering how people felt about them. Strolling down Andrew’s Descent and noticing all the work being done to ready the place for tourists I just imagined doggie death squads without knowing what horrors actually exist.
What’s going to be rough, assuming shelters are built, is when cities realize they have to pay to house and feed a growing number of animals no one wants. They might be able to hold off on wholesale euthanizing through the Euro Cup to keep up appearances but I’ve got a bad feeling in my gut for what comes next.
Of course I hear Ukraine supplies contraband dogs to Iran, so perhaps a profitable enterprise lurks in the shadows for some plucky entrepreneur?