A happy day for animal friends in Romania – the Constitutional Court has ruled that the new law, passed by the Parliament in the end of 2011 is against the Constitution of the country! The law, voted by 168 romanian members of parliament allowed municipalities a choice wether they will be using euthanasia or Spay-Neuter-Return as a method of decreasing stray dog overpopulation. This is a major win for dog-lovers both in Romania and abroad, bringing a clear conclusion to a strong debate among romanians.
Since the end of the communist regime of Ceausescu EU member state Romania developed a serious stray dog problem. For decades authorities failed to intervene properly. Dogs were inhumanely caught and killed randomly.
In the 90′s The World Health Organization proved scientifically that killing dogs has no effect on the root cause of the problem. The W.H.O. stated spay/neuter is the only effective way to reduce the number of free roaming dogs besides informing the citizens about responsible dog ownership. Stray dogs are not the problem itself; it’s the irresponsible dog owners who continuously deliver new fertile dogs in combination with corruptive authorities which sabotage spay/neuter projects to make money.
Besides the fact spay/neuter is the only effective way to deal with a surplus of dogs, it is humane and much cheaper than the endless catching and killing of free roaming dogs.
In Romania stray dogs are seldom euthanized humanely. Dogs are being caught violently and beaten to death with baseball bats, shot, poisoned or starved to death.
The last decade Romania has spent 40 million Euros on tax payer’s money on the stray dog problem, but due to corruption the money ended up in private pockets. The stray dog problem turned into a very profitable business for many politicians and their relatives.