SNIP AND GO

Plans to control the growing population of stray dogs and cats in the kingdom have been instigated by Bahrain’s leading animal charity in association with local authorities.

The Bahrain Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA) is in talks with government officials to launch a major Animal Birth Control programme (ABC) across the island

As well as government funding, the charity is also hoping to attract sponsorship from local firms and donations from animal lovers to the tune of BD10,000 towards essential clinical equipment.

The only alternative to the plans is another mass cull carried out by marksmen and the continuation of healthy animals being put down if good homes cannot be found for them.

Officials at the BSPCA shelter in Saar, which primarily takes care of unwanted dogs and cats, says that the stray animal situation currently in Bahrain is ‘far from acceptable’.

They receive more than 3,000 animals annually of which they manage to find homes for around 300 – less than 10 per cent. Although there is no official census taken, fund-raising co-ordinator Joyce Hughes, of the BSPCA, said: “Most countries have population control methods in place to reduce street-dog packs and feral cat colonies and have dog wardens attached to their municipalities.

“Bahrain does not have this yet but we hope in years to come it will. Neither the animals nor the public are happy with the way things are at present.”

The ABC plan may start as soon as 2012 and in preparation the BSPCA vet Dr Hansel Geo Thomas has recently been on a 10-day residential course held in Udhagamandalam, in India, on best practices for fast and safe neutering that is run by the Worldwide Veterinary Service.

His training was funded by the Dogs Trust in the UK. Mrs Hughes and shelter manager Paul Duke will also be going to India early next year to receive training on managing a trap, neuter and return (TNR) programme in Bahrain.

Mrs Hughes said: “The authorities’ answer in the past has so often been to ‘mass shoot’ packs. In my opinion this is inhumane. It would also be unnecessary if a ‘trap, neuter and return’ programme was in place.
 
“If this system was introduced the yearly population numbers would start to fall, providing the programme was on-going. The BSPCA would love to help with this solution for Bahrain.

“It’s humane, less costly and an accepted practise all over the world as the most effective method for population control.
“If you let the animals continue to procreate, we will only see more and more of them on the streets and the authorities will keep on with the temporary solution of barbaric shooting and the BSPCA will continue having no choice but to euthanise those that we cannot find homes for, or because we have a lack of space for the strays.

“This solution only tackles the obvious symptoms of the problem, i.e. the large packs we see around, but does not try to find a solution to the root cause. It’s madness really!”

Packs of wild dogs have been causing growing concern and a number of attacks on people have been reported as the growing number of strays venture into towns and villages from the desert areas in search of food.

Currently the BSPCA provides a neutering service to caring pet owners in Bahrain starting at a cost of BD15. They hope to raise funds specifically for a nationwide programme that includes male and female dogs and cats after moving to their new animal welfare centre in Askar at the end of the year.
 
Dr Thomas, 25, said: “In vet school they teach us the surgical aspects of neutering. A programme like this teaches us how to perform neutering on a field at a much bigger level with the minimum required equipment. In a normal surgery we carry out three to four neutering surgeries in a day. At our new site we would be talking about 40 to 50!

“We are looking at what we can do in the best interests of the animal and the society in which we live.”

Dogs come into heat every six months and can produce up to 20 puppies a year on average. Neutering has been adopted worldwide because finding responsible ownership is problematic.

Generally, in an ABC programme, a team goes out to capture strays and brings them to a centre. The surgical area is made sterile and the rest of the area is clean. After the procedure, the insides of the animals are disposed of in an incinerator.

Government bodies are looking at the situation seriously and a decision will be made shortly. Dr Salman Al Khuzaei, assistant undersecretary for agriculture affairs in the Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning, confirmed that it is in discussions with the BSPCA and it is in favour of the TNR proposal. He said: “We have agreed that it is a good idea in the long-term as it can control the street animal population and also help in controlling diseases.

“We currently have to resort to shooting stray animals, particularly when they get aggressive and attack domesticated animals on farms, for example.”
 
The government officials also said that the two parties had not yet worked out details of the programme, such as the kind of support or funding possibilities. A Dutch team was given a green signal to go ahead with a similar programme a year ago, but they left Bahrain because of a lack of funding.

Dr Thomas said that the training involved working in a mobile field clinic and also provided tips on how to catch dogs and take a census of strays in a particular area. He said: “I personally learned very good surgical techniques such as how to put an animal back on the street without removing its stitches. We use intra-dermal absorbable sutures so that the animals don’t pull the stitches out and can be released into the wild after observing them for as little as a day.

“I needed to develop the skill of doing the surgery at a fast pace. In the field, time is an essential factor. In other countries, ABC programmes are often conducted to prevent rabies. Bahrain is a rabies-free country but there is a clear call for a need to stabilise the population.

“In an area of 100 dogs if I sterilised 85 to 90 dogs, over a period of five years, the population would remain static.
“Neutering is a pro-active measure to make Bahrain safer. It also has to do with an equally serious issue of people’s attitude towards animals.”

Dr Thomas grew up in Bahrain and is the only vet at the BSPCA centre. He began volunteering with the charity when he was 10 and it led him to choose a career in animal welfare. The former Indian School of Bahrain student worked in Bangalore before returning to the kingdom as the BSPCA vet two years ago. He is married to Elizabeth who is a school teacher.

To donate or help the society take care of orphaned animals visit www.bspca.org