~ Stray dogs cannot be relocated to areas other than their birth by law, according to Dr Karlette Fernandes.
~ Contraband medication used to turn animals aggressive during bullfights, she said.
Stray dog presence on Goan roads is “highly associated” with garbage management, according to veterinary doctor Dr Karlette Ann Fernandes, who also said that it is against the rules of the land to relocate a stray animal away from the place it is born.
Fernandes was speaking at an interactive MOG Sunday session held at the Museum of Goa in Pilerne, on the subject of ‘Animal Rights in India,’ during which she also addressed issues of public relevance like the ongoing stray dog conundrum and dog bite incidents in recent times, some of which have turned out to be fatal.
“It (stray dog presence) is highly associated with the way we manage our garbage. And dogs being dogs, they have domesticated around humans,” she said, drawing a link between the presence of garbage and the emergence of stray dogs in a particular area.
Fernandes said that the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, in force in the country, threw a protective shield around community dogs. “One of the rules says that community dogs have the right to live in the territory where they were born. So relocation of dogs, just picking up dogs because you don’t like them from one place and then leaving them on a hill to fend for themselves, is against the law,” she said.
Pet behaviour, the animal expert said, was largely defined by how pets are kept and conditioned.
“When animals are confined for too long, they end up building up frustrations. Most of the conflict is because the animal is not socialised enough and it has (a sense of) frustration of its own, as a result of the way the animal is brought up in that environment,” she said, adding that prospective guardians of such pets should “first understand whether they can provide the correct environment for the animal that they are adopting.”
Fernandes said that indiscriminate slaughter of chickens in stores in public spaces was also against the letter of the law of the land. “One of the glaring things that comes to me is all the chicken shops we have around everywhere. All the corner chicken shops. None of them are legal as per the regulations,” she said, adding that animal slaughter has to be carried out in designated slaughterhouses.
In the course of her interaction, Fernandes further said that while the use of animals in sports like bullfights is illegal, she also pointed towards a growing trend where fighting bulls are plied with contraband medicine to give them an aggressive edge. “Those animals should not be used as animals for fighting. But they now use contraband medications to make the animals more aggressive to have a more impactful conflict between the two animals,” Fernandes said.
Fernandes who has also played a part in the very successful ‘Mission Rabies’ in Goa, said that the local strain of rabies had been eradicated from Goa and the rare cases that crop up were linked to rabies virus strains from outside the state.
