Jeev Sabha backs ‘catch-vaccinate-sterilise-release’ model to save strays | Mumbai News

MUMBAI: At a press conference on Monday, a citizen-led civic platform unveiled a “humane, science-based alternative” to the Supreme Court’s order directing the corralling of stray dogs into shelters. Animal welfare activists, health practitioners, and citizens–united under the newly formed collective Jeev Sabha-argued the ‘catch-vaccinate-sterilise-release’ model is a more effective animal management strategy than mass confinement, for reducing dog bites and preventing rabies. Jeev Sabha outlined a 4-pronged framework: Scaling up Animal Birth Control (ABC) alongside annual mass anti-rabies vaccination; integrating public health and municipal systems to ensure predictable vaccination and sterilisation cycles, unified disease surveillance and standardised protocols; strengthening post-bite response mechanisms; and mounting a science-backed public awareness campaign to counter fear-mongering and the animal abuse it often triggers.Confining dogs to shelters, the speakers maintained, amounted to an ad hoc and reactive response to a problem whose bark was worse than its bite. “When we talk about rabies, what we’re really talking about is fear,” said psychiatrist Dr Anjali Chhabria. Dr Shweta Singh, a Clinical Associate in Critical Care Medicine at Kokilaben Hospital, stressed rabies prevention must be treated as a non-negotiable priority of public health. Rabies, they reiterated, was 100% preventable-and treatable- with timely medical care, a goal best served by a nationwide anti-rabies campaign. The organisers also cited WHO’s ‘Zero by 30’ initiative to end human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.They added heft to their call for systematic, in-situ animal management by citing Mumbai’s successful track record at managing the city’s dog population. The BMC’s 10-year review (2014-24) of the city’s street dog population management and sterilisation programme reported a 21.8% reduction in dog density- from 95,172 dogs, or approximately 10.54 dogs per km in 2014 to 90,757 dogs or 8.01 dogs/km in 2024-underscoring the effectiveness of the city’s ABC programme. However, the report also noted an 11.9% dip in sterilisation (by BMC), to 62.9%.