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KORONADAL CITY (MindaNews/22 October) – The city government is pushing for the establishment of an animal impounding facility in a bid to control the proliferation of various stray animals, especially of rabies-infected dogs, along the city’s streets and neighborhoods. Dr. Charlemagne Calo, city veterinary office chief, said they are currently drawing up plans for the development of the city’s animal impounding center as well as a system that would effectively keep stray animals off public areas within the city. He said the move was part of their continuing “step by step” interventions to control the spread of rabies and address the rising cases of road accidents in the area that were caused by stray dogs and other animals.[]
“Our goal to eventually clear our city’s streets and neighborhoods ofall stray pet animals, specifically dogs, and make sure that they are confined within household areas,” he said. Calo said they are initially planning to conduct an inventory of stray dogs and other animals within the city to facilitate the formulation of the area’s animal impounding system. He said they will particularly look into the number of stray dogs in specific areas in the city on a daily basis so they could measure the size and capacity of the impounding facility that would be built later on.[]
“We’ll adopt a management system that will allow the rounded up stray animals to only stay at the planned impounding center for three days. If no one will claim them, we will put them to sleep in a humane way,” Calo said. He said they are also planning to send some of their personnel to trainings on management of animal impounding centers and in dog-catching. Data from the city veterinary office showed that the dog population within the city’s 27 barangays currently stands at around 14,000. But such figure only covers dogs that were served by the local government’s continuing dog vaccination program. Calo said they want to make sure that the impounding center will have a proper system to prevent the overcrowding problems experienced by some localities.[]
He said a number of the existing impounding centers in several key cities in the country were supposedly built without proper systems and studies, triggering the overcrowding of as much as 20 dogs per cage. Calo said they have not yet identified a location for the proposed impounding center, which are usually built in outskirt areas. The facility’s location should be far from residential communities and there should be an available area for the proper disposal of its wastes and the unclaimed animals, he said. (Allen V. Estabillo/MindaNews)
