No measures taken to control stray dog menace in Tirunelveli

The menacingly increased stray dog population in the twin towns of Tirunelveli and Palayamkottai, owing to zero measures to control the number, causes frequent accidents involving bikes and the aimlessly wandering dogs bite innocent passers-by, especially women, children and senior citizens going for morning walk.

Accidents involving bikes being caused by stray dogs have increased manifold in the recent past as these dogs run amok and most of the victims are women riding scooters.

Mari Thangam, who is running an ironing shop on the RTO Office Road and earning ₹300 a day, suffered multiple bleeding injuries on both the hands and the legs as a pack of stray dogs chased his bike and one of them was caught in between the two-wheels.

“Even though I slowed down the bike, the dog got stuck between the wheels overturned the two-wheeler and I suffered multiple injuries. Since the cut I sustained on the right knee and left foot was deep, I could not work for five days. Besides losing my income for five days and bearing the pain, I had to pay the medical and the mechanic bills,” says Mr. Mari Thangam, whose helmet saved him from sustaining grievous head injury.

The mechanics suggest that those who ride scooters and bikes in the ‘dog menace areas’ should ride carefully.

“Since the wheels of the scooters are very small and narrow, the dogs, running at high speed, can easily knock down these vehicles to injure the riders. I’m receiving every week at least two scooters damaged in the accidents triggered by stray dogs,” say two-wheeler mechanic Murugan of Samathanapuram.

According to the doctors serving in the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital, Primary Health Centres and the Government Hospitals in the district, they were receiving at least five dog bite cases every week and this number crosses 20 in TVMCH. This number does not include patients coming with bike accident injuries also caused by stray dogs.

“As the Tamil Nadu Government has allowed euthanasia for seriously ill dogs, the Tirunelveli Corporation, which has failed to control stray dog population by regularly carrying out animal birth control, should take steps in this direction at least control the population to some extent. If it is not controlled, it will reach uncontrollable proportion very soon,” said K. Rajkumar, a senior citizen and retired teacher, who suffered dog bite a month ago during the morning walk and took anti-rabies vaccine.

The loss being caused by stray dogs to shepherds by hunting down their goats and sheep is also huge in the recent past. “Hence, we have to keep at least two pet dogs in the pen to guard our livelihood,” says shepherds Muthu and Sudalai of Reddiyarpatti

A senior corporation official said four camps are being conducted every week in each zone of the urban civic body to administer anti-rabies vaccine to stray dogs and 50 to 100 dogs are being vaccinated a week. In the past three months, around 900 dogs have been vaccinated against rabies by the veterinarians from the Animal Husbandry Department.

“At the same time, the delay in identifying the right NGO for conducting animal birth control (ABC) has resulted in an unprecedented increase of stray dog population in Tirunelveli and Palayamkottai. Since the performance of the NGO identified earlier for this exercise was far from satisfaction, the contract was terminated. Once the new NGO is handpicked, the ABC will resume,” said the official.