With around 4 million stray dogs in Türkiye, more than a thousand municipalities lack animal shelters, with no capacity to accommodate the millions of animals, Ali Eroğlu, president of the Central Council of the Turkish Veterinary Medical Association, stated on Wednesday.
During his visit to Aksaray in central Türkiye for several events, Eroğlu shared insights on the stray dog population, dog attacks and the lack of shelter infrastructure.
“As the Turkish Veterinary Medical Association, we approach this as a strategic issue, as it’s one of the major current concerns in our country. We believe it can be resolved in the coming years through strong legislation, robust institutional structures and adequate budgets," Eroğlu said.
"The Constitutional Court recently rejected the appeal against Law No. 7527, which means the law remains in effect. According to this law, municipalities must urgently establish shelters and natural living areas where stray animals can live comfortably. Currently, over a thousand municipalities still lack shelters," he said.
"These must be built immediately. If the shelter has enough capacity, animals can be housed there. But if you try to place 20-30 animals into a space meant for just three or five, new problems will arise,” Eroğlu added.
Speaking about the neutering of stray animals, Eroğlu explained: “There’s a common misunderstanding about sterilization. Sterilized animals are not necessarily non-aggressive. The purpose of neutering is to prevent population growth and reduce the number of animals. Türkiye is currently estimated to have around 3.5 million to 4 million stray animals, that's what our data shows. And we simply do not have the shelter capacity to accommodate them."
"Even if the shelters we envision were built in every province, they might still fall short. People are still suffering from this issue. As you may recall, a few months ago in Şanlıurfa, a young woman who had just left her university panicked during a dog attack and was hit by two vehicles while trying to escape, tragically losing her life. We must ensure that such painful incidents no longer occur in our country,” he added.
