65,000 Dogs Saved From Bali's Ongoing Cull

In November 2008, Bali was declared a rabies zone and Governor Made Mangku Pastika called for a mass culling of stray dogs. With an estimated canine population of 600,000 across the island, that's no small feat. "The residents can just go ahead by taking initiative to kill stray dogs," Pastika said. "If the mass dog culling relied only on administration officials, it would take too long to get rid of [the rabies]."

The international animal welfare community protested the plan, even as, a year later, the government had reportedly killed some 20,000 dogs. There were reports of dogs being shot in public places, and those were the luckier ones. The government used meatballs laced with strychnine to poison the dogs, taking out a number of pets along with the strays and condemning the animals to a cruel death where they suffer from convulsions and internal bleeding.

These horrific deaths were also being witnessed by tourists, which prompted the Denspasar Tourism Agency to ask the government to be "more sensitive." Their advice? "The elimination program has to be done when there are not many people watching, or at least avoid doing it where tourists usually gather." Right. Because if you kill tens of thousands of dogs in back alleys, maybe the world won't mind what's happening on your idyllic island.

Partnering with the World Society for the Protection of Animals, the Bali Animal Welfare Association is out to prove that not only is it more humane to conquer rabies through a large-scale vaccination campaign, but it's also possible.

The World Health Organization supports vaccination as the best way to protect public health in a rabies outbreak. It's estimated that, if 70 percent of the dog population is vaccinated, then the rabies will be fully under control. That's a lot of animals that need to be caught, vaccinated, logged and released; far more than most other welfare programs targeting stray, feral or wild animals worldwide have tried to tackle.

But this past week, the World Society for the Protection of Animals announced that BAWA's dedicated staff, with vaccines funded by WSPA members around the world, have successfully vaccinated 42,500 dogs in Bali's Gianyar district over the last eight months, preventing the cull of 65,000 dogs in the area. As a bonus, dog bites in Gianyar have dropped by as much as 50 percent, even though they continue to increase everywhere else on the island. The dogs and people of Gianyar are better off, no culling necessary.

"The support we've received from all the village officials has only reinforced our belief that villagers in Bali really do care for their dogs," says Janice Girardi, head of BAWA. With the successful outcome of the program in Gianyar, the animal welfare organizations hope to convince government officials across Bali to stop the cullings and take the humane road instead.

Photo credit: jmcgross