From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)
BUCHAREST–“Authorities in Bucharest, Romania, have finally
agreed to cease killing stray animals and allow our teams to treat
and neuter the city’s 40,000 [street] dogs instead,” the
Vienna-based animal charity Vier Pfoten announced on October 6, 2010.
Vier Pfoten said the pact “may be the biggest breakthrough”
in the more than 10 years that it has sent veterinarians to Romania.
The Vier Pfoten dog and cat sterilization project began in
Bucharest, then expanded into parallel projects elsewhere in
Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Jordan, Egypt, and South Africa.
The initial project in Bucharest was thwarted, however, when
then-Bucharest major Traian Basescu ordered a purge of free-roaming
dogs in 2001. Bucharest pounds killed 48,000 dogs that year, and
have continued to kill dogs ever since. Basescu–long controversial
for many reasons–meanwhile ascended to the presidency of Romania,
and oversaw the admission of Romania to the European Union, whose
public health policies disfavor high-volume killing as an animal
control method.
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