Towards a sustainable urban environment: Ministry of Environment proposes capturing neglected animals and sending them to shelters

The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology has prepared draft guidelines for dealing with attacks by stray animals. This was reported by the ministry’s press service following a meeting on the draft document.

The measures include organizing monitoring of stray animal populations, as well as search and capture of stray animals with their subsequent placement in specialized shelters.

The project concept aims to create conditions to reduce the risk of harm to life and health of citizens as a result of attacks by stray animals.

The guidelines specify when street animals pose a potential threat to others, e.g. when four-legged animals live in crowded areas, near heating mains or at waste collection sites.

It is expected that thanks to instructions from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the regions will be able to form orders and monitor the dynamics of tension in the situation.

“In order to prevent and reduce attacks of stray animals on people, it is proposed to monitor the state of the population of such animals, to identify and capture animals without owners and place them in specialised shelters and other measures.

Dynamics of tension of the situation will be monitored monthly, and starting from July 31, 2023, the subjects of Russia will provide such information to the Ministry of Natural Resources once in half a year,” the ministry specified.

As previously reported by TASS, citing research by Mars Petcare, the number of homeless cats and dogs in Russia is 4.1 million, or 6% of the total animal population in the country.

According to experts, the majority of stray animals in Russia are cats — 3.2 million, 735,000 are dogs. Another 144,000 pets live in shelters.

Researchers say that Russia has the second highest percentage of stray animals in the world — between Great Britain and Germany.

Pet abandonment rate in the Russian Federation is 26% and is close to the global rate of 28%. However, cats are twice as likely to be adopted in Russia as dogs around the world, while dogs are twice as likely to be abandoned.

“On average, 39% of Russians see a homeless cat and 38% see a homeless dog at least once a day,” said the survey authors.

According to the report, in Russia 96% of the population is aware of the existence of shelters for homeless animals — the highest figure in the world. However, only 30% of respondents could name addresses or names of specific shelters in their areas of residence.

Cover photo: Pxhere