KARACHI’S decision to neuter, vaccinate and tag stray dogs is a welcome shift from the crude and ineffective practice of mass culling. With dog-bite cases rising and rabies remaining a deadly threat, the authorities are right to treat the problem as a public-health emergency. The proposed coordination between the commissioner’s office, town administrations, health authorities and animal welfare groups is encouraging, as is the establishment of animal birth control centres and the reported availability of anti-rabies vaccines at major dog-bite facilities. But plans of this sort have been announced before, only to falter due to poor implementation, inadequate funding and weak follow-up. The government must therefore ensure that the new programme is sustained across the city rather than confined to a few districts or reduced to sporadic drives. Tagging can help identify vaccinated and neutered animals, while proper data collection should allow officials to focus resources on areas recording the highest number of attacks.
The underlying principle should remain clear: indiscriminate culling is neither a humane nor a durable answer to the canine crisis. Killing large numbers of dogs may temporarily reduce their visibility, but it does little to address the conditions that allow stray populations to recover. A sustained trap-neuter-vaccinate-release programme, backed by proper monitoring, offers a more rational path. Humane euthanasia of dogs showing clinical signs of rabies is consistent with WHO guidance; indiscriminate culling of healthy strays is not. At the same time, citizens bitten by rabid dogs must have immediate access to vaccines, proper wound care and other anti-rabies treatment. Municipal authorities must also tackle the heaps of exposed refuse that provide stray animals with a ready food source. A competent administration should be capable of protecting both public safety and animal welfare, by reducing the dog population humanely, preventing rabies transmission and ensuring that no bite victim is left scrambling for life-saving treatment when needed.
Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026
