Animal Welfare Groups, Government Agencies and Developers getting together to solve the Stray animal issues in Kuching

suppadmin | September 3, 2016

Dogs and man have always had a synergistic relationship throughout history. In Kuching today, it is no different. A lot of building sites use dogs as a measure to safeguard their equipment and property. The workers also treat these animals as pets.

But as nature would have it, these building site dogs freely breed and each female dog can have puppies as often as twice a year with up to 6 or more puppies each time. The worksites are soon over populated with animals. This can cause a lot of problems to both the sites and the surrounding neighbourhood. These site dogs are generally free roaming and opportunistic feeders, so they will eat where and whatever they find, mostly waste, rubbish or discarded food. The poor hygiene for these animals will lead to sickness, disease and poor health with canine distemper and Parvo Virus among them, and in several states in Malaya, they even have outbreaks of rabies requiring mass killings and shootings of animals, pets and strays alike.

At the building sites, the problem starts when the project is completed and the workers are disbanded and move away from the sites, the site dogs are normally left behind to fend for themselves. These dogs become strays and move around the neighbourhood looking for food and shelter causing nuisance and potential dangers and hazards to the residents in the area.

Taking preventive measures against this problem, in mid August, at the initiative of SSPCA, S.O.S (Save our Strays), Councillors from Majlis Perbandaran Padawan(MPP) and Majlis Bandaran Kuching Selatan(MBKS) and management of GalaCity Development come up with a plan to solve this site dog issue at their Stampin work site.

The agreed procedure was to Use the CNVR (Capture, Neuter, Vaccinate and Release) methodology introduced by SSPCA and S.O.S. Members from the two animal welfare groups would help catch the animals, send them to the local private vets to be neutered and vaccinated, and provide post surgery care, then transfer the neutered and vaccinated animals back to the worksite. They will also continuously monitor the health of the animals during the post surgery period. The councillors will assist in the registering and licensing of the neutered animals and Galacity, the developer has agreed to pay for the neutering fees. SSPCA and S.O.S will also assist to relocate the neutered animals at the end of the project if the company or workers no longer wants the animals. In the mean time, if the work site requires more neutered and vaccinated site dogs, SSPCA can assist to provide these animals from their shelter in Kota Sentosa. This has resulted in a win-win solution between the residents of the area, the development company and the dogs, not to mention SSPCA, S.O.S and the local councils.

Another problem which surfaced during the CNVR project was that some of the stray animals brought into the private vet clinics were infected with Parvo Virus and Canine Distemper, which caused a disease outbreak in some of the private clinics, requiring them to close down for a period of time for the purpose of sanitizing the clinics. Several local vets had to stop taking in strays.

SSPCA, S.O.S and the local councils have taken the initiative to approach the Datu Dr Lai Kui Fong, Director, Agriculture Department of Sarawak, to appeal to him to reactivate the Government Veterinary Clinic at Jalan Sekama, Kuching and to allow the participation of local private vets into the facility for the purpose of neutering the strays. The discussions have been very positive and hopefully, fruitful.