ABC halts, street dog numbers rise in Bangalore

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
BANGALORE–Unpaid by the city in four months, Krupa Loving
Animals, Karuna, and Compassion Unlimited Plus Action have
suspended doing Animal Birth Control program surgeries for Bangalore
municipality, and the Animal Rights Fund will stop on September 1,
2008, Afshan Yasmeen of The Hindu reported on August 15, 2008.
A fifth animal charity, Ahmedabad-based Animal Help, has
sterilized more than 5,000 dogs recently in outlying parts of
Bangalore, demonstrating the efficacy of same-day release of dogs
after surgery, in lieu of the multi-day holding periods for
post-surgical recovery that are practiced by most ABC programs. The
Animal Help approach, abbreviated as CNVR, requires using
high-speed, small-incision surgery under much more strictly aseptic
conditions than is the ABC norm.

“According to the city government, there has been a rise in
the number of stray dogs in the city since the ABC program
began–from around 70,000 in 2000 to 183,758 in 2007,” wrote
Yasmeen. But a June 2007 door-to-door canvas of 3.2 million
Bangalore households found just 24,491 street dogs, estimated to be
about half the probable number at large, along with 17,480 pet dogs.
The Bangalore human population has increased from about 4.1
million to 5.7 million since 2000, producing a parallel increase in
the amount of refuse and rats available for street dogs to consume.
The Bangalore ABC programs predicted in early 2007 that
street dog numbers would rise if the city did not stop aggressive
catch-and-kill activity that followed two fatal maulings of children
in January and March 2007. The dog purges killed thousands of dogs
who had already been sterilized and vaccinated, and were soon
followed by the reappearance of rabies in inner Bangalore, after an
absence of several years coinciding with the ABC work.