The homeless dogs
Romania has a long history of free-roaming dogs, and of dire failure to control their populations. The problem of both community dogs and stray dogs dates back to the 19th century and their extermination has always been received with resistance and left scars in the collective conscience.
Contanta Vintila-Ghitulescu from the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History in Bucharest says about stray dogs in the 19th century:
“Stray dogs have been an issue for Romania forever, and in the 19th century there was talk for the first time of eliminating them. Until then, the problem was partly due to the fact that households did not have clear limits, such as fences, and so household dogs became everybody’s dogs. Bucharest and Iasi back then did not have clearly delimited households, like now, and that was true of Europe in general. The first document I found dates back to 1810, when the Russians, who occupied the Romanian Principalities after the 1806-1812 war with the Turks, saw the dogs all over the streets and hired people to round them up and kill them. Then they issued announcements to tell people to keep their own dogs chained in their courtyards, lest they be hunted down. After the Russians left in 1812, the measure fell. However, when cities started being reorganized by the French model in 1850, it came back. In the countryside, however, dogs are everywhere people are.
The consuls of Great Britain and France, present in Bucharest and Iasi until 1859, talk about being unable to walk the streets at night because of the dogs that were everywhere. There is an 1850 testimonial talking about the dogs on the Dambovita. Why there? Because it was the place where there were a lot of slaughterhouses and tanneries. These small businesses threw every piece of refuse in the river, and a lot of dogs ate what they threw away. Taking a walk there was bordering on suicide. In 1852, cities started issuing ordinances against stray dogs. The first shelter was built because the sight of killing them was gruesome. The first humanitarian arguments also emerged against the public killing of dogs.
You can find in an old newspaper testimonies about rabid dogs, who attack anyone they meet, in cities or villages. You can see how serious the problem was from the many recipes against rabies. The problem was compounded by wolves. In the countryside, especially in the mountains, wolves were a constant presence, especially in winter, in addition to rabid dogs. Dogs are especially aggressive during epidemics, when food is scarce. The spectacle is atrocious, because in times when the plague hit, people were buried even before they were dead. People were so scared that they wanted to get rid of the sick people even before they died of the disease. As I said, the spectacle was horrible: dogs were pulling out corpses out of the ground and dragged them all over the streets.”
In all subsequent historical periods, Romania failed to deal with the problem of stray dogs. During communism, the population of stray dogs exploded as the authorities razed whole neighborhoods to erect blocks of flats, and this issue continues.
Contanta Vintila-Ghitulescu from the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History in Bucharest says about stray dogs in the 19th century:
“Stray dogs have been an issue for Romania forever, and in the 19th century there was talk for the first time of eliminating them. Until then, the problem was partly due to the fact that households did not have clear limits, such as fences, and so household dogs became everybody’s dogs. Bucharest and Iasi back then did not have clearly delimited households, like now, and that was true of Europe in general. The first document I found dates back to 1810, when the Russians, who occupied the Romanian Principalities after the 1806-1812 war with the Turks, saw the dogs all over the streets and hired people to round them up and kill them. Then they issued announcements to tell people to keep their own dogs chained in their courtyards, lest they be hunted down. After the Russians left in 1812, the measure fell. However, when cities started being reorganized by the French model in 1850, it came back. In the countryside, however, dogs are everywhere people are.
The consuls of Great Britain and France, present in Bucharest and Iasi until 1859, talk about being unable to walk the streets at night because of the dogs that were everywhere. There is an 1850 testimonial talking about the dogs on the Dambovita. Why there? Because it was the place where there were a lot of slaughterhouses and tanneries. These small businesses threw every piece of refuse in the river, and a lot of dogs ate what they threw away. Taking a walk there was bordering on suicide. In 1852, cities started issuing ordinances against stray dogs. The first shelter was built because the sight of killing them was gruesome. The first humanitarian arguments also emerged against the public killing of dogs.
You can find in an old newspaper testimonies about rabid dogs, who attack anyone they meet, in cities or villages. You can see how serious the problem was from the many recipes against rabies. The problem was compounded by wolves. In the countryside, especially in the mountains, wolves were a constant presence, especially in winter, in addition to rabid dogs. Dogs are especially aggressive during epidemics, when food is scarce. The spectacle is atrocious, because in times when the plague hit, people were buried even before they were dead. People were so scared that they wanted to get rid of the sick people even before they died of the disease. As I said, the spectacle was horrible: dogs were pulling out corpses out of the ground and dragged them all over the streets.”
In all subsequent historical periods, Romania failed to deal with the problem of stray dogs. During communism, the population of stray dogs exploded as the authorities razed whole neighborhoods to erect blocks of flats, and this issue continues.
The Romanian Animal and Human Rights Crisis
The 4th of September, 2013 - triggered by the tragic death of the young child, Ionut Anghel, whose lifeless body was found two days before on a private property in Bucharest at almost one kilometer away from the park where their grandmother had left him and his older brother unattended for more than one hour - marked the beginning of a very dark time for all of Romania's homeless dogs. Almost immediately and capitalizing on the publicity that accompanied the case, it was announced that the death had been caused by stray dogs. No one waited until the final investigations were over to determine how the death of the young boy was caused.
On 10th of September, 2013, the Romanian Parliament with persuasion by President Basescu, adopted a new law that would sentence all of Romania's homeless dogs to death after 14 working days spent in one of their death camps, if not claimed, adopted, or perished before. Within one week of this tragic event, the Chamber of Deputies adopted a law on stray dogs by 266 votes in favor, 23 votes against and 20 abstentions, despite the fact that the bill’s initiator had not agreed to include euthanasia as a procedure. [1]
On 16th of September, 2013, a group of 30 Parliament members from several political parties filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court against the draft law that stipulated euthanasia of captured dogs after 14 working days.
On 25th of September, 2013 Constitutional Court judge Petre Lăzăroiu, suggested that "the mass killing of stray dogs could traumatize the population"... then the entire place ruled to cull all dogs. And that the eradication of Romania's homeless animals - although it had been ruled unconstitutional in January 2012 - was now 'constitutional'.
Although initially blamed on strays, the boy's death was later found to have been caused by seven guard dogs owned by a private company.
In May 2015, the court ordered that a € 2.4 million compensation was to be paid to Ionut’s family. The judges also sentenced Constantin Ciorascu to three years in prison with suspension. He is the owner of the company that managed the greenfield where the incident occurred. [10] The ruling was not final and had been challenged.
Despite this, supporters of the draconian law have continued to justify the killings, often using the tragic case of the boy to bolster their argument.
On 18th of March, 2016 the entire investigation took a new turn when lawyers submitted a new expert report according to which the child's death seems to have been caused by dogs trained for dog fighting, whereas the rather superficial bites were caused by the "strays". According to an article published by 'Romania TV', the expert claims that the bites on Ionut body are specific to fighting dogs. In addition, and in support of this theory, the vet said that this was why Ionut's brother (who was found by a passerby on the sidewalk almost 1 km away from the park) had not been attacked by the dogs. A "stray dog" (or guard dog) would attack anyone they perceive as "enemy", while dogs trained for fighting would not be chasing a different prey once they found a victim. [14] This theory coincides with the fact that several witnesses confirmed that illegal dog fights would be organized in this area.
On 12th of May, 2016 Constantin Ciorăscu - the owner of the private property where Ionut Anghel was found dead - has been sentenced to three years of imprisonment and payment of 2,4 mio EURO compensation to be paid to Ionut's family. The decision of the Court of Appeal Bucharest is final. [15]
The wording of Romanian legislation is comparable to legislation in a number of other countries, but, in our view, it would not be appropriate to defend an inhumane policy disguised by way of a purely “cosmetic” piece of legislation. Romania has decided to implement dog population control by way of removing hundreds of thousands of dogs, and whereas financing, facilities and new homes are not, in practice, available to accommodate the high number of dogs, the essential content of the policy is indeed “Catch & Kill”. An extermination policy, such as the one currently in practice in Romania, is not an appropriate response to stray dogs anywhere in the world, let alone Europe. The massive culling of dogs lacks compassion and defies values and respect for life we would normally expect from EU-members.
The entire law was based on a knee jerk reaction without any scientific evidence, and since its introduction till to date (August 2015) about 350.000 innocent dogs have paid for it with their life, and thousands more have died in Romania's public shelters of what is considered to "die of natural causes".
On 10th of September, 2013, the Romanian Parliament with persuasion by President Basescu, adopted a new law that would sentence all of Romania's homeless dogs to death after 14 working days spent in one of their death camps, if not claimed, adopted, or perished before. Within one week of this tragic event, the Chamber of Deputies adopted a law on stray dogs by 266 votes in favor, 23 votes against and 20 abstentions, despite the fact that the bill’s initiator had not agreed to include euthanasia as a procedure. [1]
On 16th of September, 2013, a group of 30 Parliament members from several political parties filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court against the draft law that stipulated euthanasia of captured dogs after 14 working days.
On 25th of September, 2013 Constitutional Court judge Petre Lăzăroiu, suggested that "the mass killing of stray dogs could traumatize the population"... then the entire place ruled to cull all dogs. And that the eradication of Romania's homeless animals - although it had been ruled unconstitutional in January 2012 - was now 'constitutional'.
Although initially blamed on strays, the boy's death was later found to have been caused by seven guard dogs owned by a private company.
In May 2015, the court ordered that a € 2.4 million compensation was to be paid to Ionut’s family. The judges also sentenced Constantin Ciorascu to three years in prison with suspension. He is the owner of the company that managed the greenfield where the incident occurred. [10] The ruling was not final and had been challenged.
Despite this, supporters of the draconian law have continued to justify the killings, often using the tragic case of the boy to bolster their argument.
On 18th of March, 2016 the entire investigation took a new turn when lawyers submitted a new expert report according to which the child's death seems to have been caused by dogs trained for dog fighting, whereas the rather superficial bites were caused by the "strays". According to an article published by 'Romania TV', the expert claims that the bites on Ionut body are specific to fighting dogs. In addition, and in support of this theory, the vet said that this was why Ionut's brother (who was found by a passerby on the sidewalk almost 1 km away from the park) had not been attacked by the dogs. A "stray dog" (or guard dog) would attack anyone they perceive as "enemy", while dogs trained for fighting would not be chasing a different prey once they found a victim. [14] This theory coincides with the fact that several witnesses confirmed that illegal dog fights would be organized in this area.
On 12th of May, 2016 Constantin Ciorăscu - the owner of the private property where Ionut Anghel was found dead - has been sentenced to three years of imprisonment and payment of 2,4 mio EURO compensation to be paid to Ionut's family. The decision of the Court of Appeal Bucharest is final. [15]
The wording of Romanian legislation is comparable to legislation in a number of other countries, but, in our view, it would not be appropriate to defend an inhumane policy disguised by way of a purely “cosmetic” piece of legislation. Romania has decided to implement dog population control by way of removing hundreds of thousands of dogs, and whereas financing, facilities and new homes are not, in practice, available to accommodate the high number of dogs, the essential content of the policy is indeed “Catch & Kill”. An extermination policy, such as the one currently in practice in Romania, is not an appropriate response to stray dogs anywhere in the world, let alone Europe. The massive culling of dogs lacks compassion and defies values and respect for life we would normally expect from EU-members.
The entire law was based on a knee jerk reaction without any scientific evidence, and since its introduction till to date (August 2015) about 350.000 innocent dogs have paid for it with their life, and thousands more have died in Romania's public shelters of what is considered to "die of natural causes".
Romania's “Catch & Kill" policy as currently in practice, will not work because it is aimed at the wrong target. Law' 258/2013 - which stands for good money to be made various companies involved in the rounding up, the supposed maintenance, the killing and the disposal of the animals killed by violence or neglect - is both inhumane and ineffective, and demonstrates the Government's inability to manage the situation properly.
Scandalously, the Romanian Government throws away millions of EURO taxpayers' money on a discredited program that has failed everywhere in the world... a sum which could contribute significantly to a country with many profound needs.
To learn more about the Romanian stray animals situation, please visit: HOPE FOR ROMANIAN DOGS
List of References