Bali Province’s Department of Animal Husbandry and Animal Health (Disnakeswan) says people need to cut it out with dumping female dogs in the streets, if we are to have any success with stopping the spread of rabies.
All too often, female puppies are thrown out like trash on the island, and so the cycle of sad unwanted puppies continues, as those puppies later beget more puppies. Which in turn makes for more rabies carriers.
“If by chance, a dog has puppies and they’re mostly female, do no immediately discard them. Contact the Department of Animal Husbandry. Later, we will handle it, whether that means adoption or sterilization,” Disnakeswan head, Dr. IKG Nata Kesuma, said on Monday, as quoted by Antara Bali.
According to Kesuma, Bali’s rabies situation is starting to stabilize with other efforts like the mass canine vaccination program that’s running from April 18 to July 31 this year—but to keep things under control, people need to stop with the puppy dumping and vaccinate their dogs.
“We expect the community to play an active role in this program by bringing in their dogs to the vaccine posts that have been set up in the banjars,” Kesuma said.
Kesuma added that Bali’s current dog population has reached 411,153 (an oddly specific number). Of that figure, 95 percent are domesticated, while the remaining five percent are wild.
But, he said of pet dogs, only 20 percent of them are kept inside, while the rest roam freely.
“We sincerely hope that we can get the cooperation of animal lovers so that rabies can be dealt with.”
We hope so too, because whenever the fear of rabies gets too strong in Bali, then the dog culling starts up again, and we sure don’t want that to happen.
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