A new app for controlling stray dog populations in Turkey is generating a lot of controversies and dividing an increasingly polarized country.
In 2021, a tragic case involving a four-year-old girl attacked by a pair of dogs created a national outcry over the country’s staggering number of strays.
Notably, the two dogs involved in the incident were not strays. However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan capitalized on the issue. Erdogan has said, “stray animals belong in shelters, not on the streets.”
Stray Dogs as Political Victims
In response, a social media app called Havrita—a combination of the Turkish words for bark and map— was created to help deal with the issue. The app allows users to place a pin wherever a stray dog is located. Supposedly, tracking the animals this way allows government workers to effectively gather, spay/neuter, and treat the dogs before returning them. While the app may have had good intentions, in practice the results have been tragic.
Soon after the app’s release, people found poisoned dogs at the pinned locations. Many believe citizens took matters into their own hands. Additionally, while the final goal is to move stray dogs into shelters, animal rights advocates say these shelters are woefully underfunded. Some activists even claim that government orders to move dogs into shelters are essentially “an order for slaughter.”
According to a report in The Japan Times, the dilemma has since become politicized and used as a wedge between Turkey’s conservative federal government and its larger, more progressive cities. Erdogan associates dogs with Western, leftist attitudes. Such comments work to sow political division within the country, as well as shift public opinions towards strays.
A Long Culture War
Fortunately, legal advocates have joined with activists to mount opposition to these unethical practices. For the moment, advocates are fighting relentlessly for these dogs. In 2004, Turkey passed its first animal protection act. Part of the bill banned the euthanization of stray dogs. Another piece implemented a system to tag strays with digital chips for tracking. Currently, the government’s official stance is the CNVR method (catch, neuter, vaccinate, release).
The current issues remind many people of an infamous 1910 incident, wherein 80,000 dogs were stranded on the island of Sivriada to starve. The program was part of the Ottoman Empire’s attempt to “modernize” the city of Istanbul.
Yet, Turkey’s storied history with dogs means support varies drastically among people. It’s worth noting that Turkey has a long tradition of caring for stray dogs, particularly among its Muslim population.
The future for Turkey’s stray dogs remains to be seen. However, right now the solutions do not respect or value the lives of these innocent dogs.
