All dogs will be hanged in the regions – Kommersant Saratov

The State Duma in May will consider a bill that will allow the regions to decide for themselves how to deal with homeless animals. At the moment, federal law obliges the subjects of the country to handle stray dogs as part of the “Trap, Spay, Vaccinate, Return on Wednesday” program. Regional authorities are optimistic about possible new powers, animal rights activists are sure that the amendments are contrary to the Constitution and will help officials hide their incompetence.

The State Duma is preparing to consider a draft law “On Amendments to the Federal Law “On Responsible Treatment of Animals and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation.” As media reported the day before, the document has already received a positive response from the government; list of necessary measures to control the population of stray dogs Last Friday, deputies of the Duma of the Astrakhan region appealed to the Federation Council with a request to amend federal legislation and allow the regions to decide how to deal with stray dogs.

According to Rospotrebnadzor, last year 330,000 citizens of the Russian Federation suffered from animals, of which 227,000 were bitten by dogs. The Department of Veterinary Medicine of the Astrakhan Region has 40,000 stray dogs in the region. Last year, more than 150 million rubles were allocated for catching, sterilizing and vaccinating animals, and more than 220 million this year. According to Governor Igor Babushkin, in 2022, six thousand cases of a person being bitten by a stray dog ​​were registered in Astrakhan. As of September 15, 2022, there were about 22.5 thousand stray dogs in the Volgograd region. This year, the administration of Volgograd has increased funding for trapping and vaccinating animals by 38%, to 26.8 million rubles.

Volgograd State Duma deputy Andrey Gimbatov (United Russia) at the beginning of last year joined the working group to finalize legislation on stray animals and was the first to openly declare the need to “euthanasia” dogs that have become a threat.

“People should not be afraid to go out or let their children go. The bill, which we will consider in May, rightly proposes to expand the powers of the subjects – the regions themselves will be able to develop their own standards for catching and keeping. I insist that the law should be supplemented with the concept of “aggressive animals” that attack a person or are a threat. Those who show unmotivated aggression. I propose to grant the right to their humane euthanasia on a par with sick animals, ”the interlocutor of Kommersant said.

One of the initiators of the popular demonstrations in Astrakhan against stray dogs on the streets of the city, the regional Duma deputy Vladislav Konyaev is not ready to call the current result in the form of a bill final: “There is progress, but there will be victory when the packs disappear from the streets. The question is, which norms will take precedence: federal or regional. It is important for us that the region determines the degree of aggressiveness of animals. The best way to define aggressiveness is when we set a deadline at the subject level for finding new hands. Aggressive dogs will not be accepted. Coming to the kennel, people will see how sweet and kind the dog is. It is unlikely that someone will take an aggressive dog home. This will be the best way to determine the aggressiveness score. Because all the methods of selecting dogs today are controversial, contradictory. The time of keeping in the nursery, according to the interlocutor of Kommersant, must be determined on the basis of practice, so that the maximum number of friendly animals find their owners. Mr. Konyaev added that the final understanding will come only after the adoption of regional laws.

Lawyer of the public movement “Be a man!” Svetlana Zibert believes that the bill is contrary to the Constitution: “Animal rights activists voted for amendments to the Constitution, because there were lines about the humane treatment of animals. If the federal government allows the regions to choose how to regulate the population of stray animals, then those who have not been able to organize a system of SPSS will be able to solve the problem in a different way, up to euthanasia, which in the same law is considered cruel treatment and implies responsibility. According to Ms. Siebert, the regions that have not been able to get the OSHV system working are lobbying for the law because local authorities want to hide incompetence and evade responsibility: “No one wants to work. Naturally, when there are many dogs on the streets, people are unhappy. But instead of admitting to bad work, local authorities begin to blame the evil dogs for everything. They start inciting the population.” The interlocutor sees the root of the problem in the fact that the regional authorities organize trapping at the request of citizens, and not on the basis of monitoring the number by zoologists. As an example, Mrs. Siebert cited Moscow, where OSVV works thanks to population control methods developed for executive authorities by the AN Severtsov Institute for Ecology and Evolution. At the same time, the regions that leave the veterinary departments at the regional level, and entrust the capture to the municipalities, get a different result: “They work with stray dogs “like with waste disposal”. Ms. Siebert added that last year a Muscovite from the budget of a subject of the Federation had four times less funds for catching dogs than a resident of the Astrakhan region.

The regions are able to solve the problem of stray dogs in a humane way and without changes in federal legislation. This opinion was expressed to Kommersant by Ekaterina Uglova, Director of the Faithful Friend Charitable Foundation. According to Ms. Uglova, one of the options is for management to work with non-profit organizations: “The goal of a commercial company is to make money. The non-profit company works for the result. When the administrations of Saratov districts hold competitions, the commercial firm that lowered the price the most wins.” As an example, Mrs. Uglova recalled a case when a dog that had been sterilized by a city contractor gave birth.

Nikita Markelov, Yaroslav Malykh