Press release from the WSPA today.

Leading welfare charity calls for Romania dog culling law to be ‘frozen’

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) regrets to hear the Romanian government’s decision to uphold the “stray-killing” law, consigning thousands of stray dogs to death after 14 days of detention in public dog pounds.

WSPA wrote to all members of the Constitutional Court urging to rule against the law but the plea went unnoticed and the court decided to uphold it after only 4 hours of discussion. President Traian Băsescu is expected to sign the new law immediately, meaning stray dogs will be legally killed in a matter of days from now.

Beryl Mutonono-Watkiss, Campaign Director at WSPA says:

“The Constitutional Court ruling for dogs to be culled in Romania is both inhumane and ineffective. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) has urged the Court to consider a more effective, sustainable and humane solution to manage the stray dog population. It is imperative that the government adopts a rational approach to address this problem.

WSPA calls for the new law to be frozen and for the Romanian government to work more closely with animal welfare organisations, such as WSPA, to implement humane and sustainable solutions , for the benefit of both people and dogs”.

WSPA’s extensive experience of working on dog management programmes around the world shows clearly that this legislation is neither practical, humane nor effective and will not provide a long-term solution to Romania’s long-standing issues with stray dogs.

Note to editors:

WSPA is part of the International Companion Animal Management Coalition (ICAM) which draws together cross-sector groups to offer a unified dog population management solution to governments and responsible authorities. This combined approach, together with rigorously developed guidance material on humanely controlling dog populations ensures that the role of NGOs in supporting governments in different ecological, environmental and socio-political settings is backed by comprehensive strategy; ensuring interventions can be appropriately targeted in the regions concerned.

Please read the guidelines for more information on humane dog population management. This strategy has provided successful long term solutions to regions and countries managing a high volume of stray dog populations.




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