More than 14,000 free-roaming dogs in the country have been sterilised in the first phase of the Nationwide Accelerated Dog Population Management and Rabies Control Programme (NADPM&RCP). The first phase covered 11 districts. The country for now is in its second phase covering the remaining nine districts.
There are more than 72,000 free-roaming dogs in the country, today. Free-roaming dogs are those dogs that are not under human control. In Bhutan, the survey however also includes those owned dogs that were roaming without its owner at the time of the survey.
Under this programme, sterilization was done in three parts. The first one saw almost 7,000 dogs neutered during the On-Job-Training.
Later, with the launch of the nationwide programme, it was divided into two phases. Today, the country is halfway into the second phase. Until yesterday, 36,000 dogs were neutered altogether.
As per Dr Kinley Dorji, the team leader of the programme, districts in the country have sterilized more dogs than was initially targeted.
“I think most dzongkhag will go beyond the target. The survey was done in the month of December and there was a gap of three months. And during that time some dogs might have given birth. So that’s why we are encountering so many puppies,” he said.
He also said the casualty from this programme was very minimal. The programme lost 0.2 per cent of the total sterilised dogs.
“I think when you are dealing with a huge number, in thousands, we will definitely encounter casualty. During the first phase, as I mentioned the total number of dogs neutered was 14,875. And from that, we had only 32 casualties, and that is bound to happen.”
He said the casualties could have been because of some dogs being weak or with underlying conditions.
Under the campaign, Dog catching nets and hand petting are the two predominant methods that are being used to catch stray dogs. After the second phase, a mini-team will continue with this programme using tranquillizers to cover 100 per cent sterilization.
Samten Dolkar
Edited by Sonam
