A scandal over 15,000 euthanized dogs reveals cruelty in Romanian dog shelters

Bucharest.- The brutal death of some 15,000 stray dogs in a private shelter in Romania in two years has shaken the Balkan country and exposed extreme cruelty and possible embezzlement of public funds in the management of those animals, of which 1.5 million have been sacrificed in 25 years. The scandal brings back to the present a problem that has been festering for decades in Romania, where the proliferation of stray dogs dates back to the communist era (1945-1989), when entire neighborhoods were demolished to build blocks of flats, and many owners moved without their animals, which multiplied uncontrollably. Since then, capture, sterilization, and euthanasia campaigns have been combined, without solving the problem, and with estimates that place the number of stray dogs at around half a million.

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Images on Social Media

The most recent outrage erupted after images recorded in a center in Suraia (east) circulated on social media, showing acts of extreme violence, with dogs tortured brutally and left to die in agony. In Romania, killing or torturing an animal is punishable by up to seven years in prison. While the police investigation into that, now closed, dog pound progresses, a petition signed by more than 200,000 people demands an end to the killings in those centers.

The Business of Killing Dogs

That facility signed more than a hundred contracts with municipalities across the country to collect stray dogs and, to make room for new intakes, euthanized 80% of those it received in a short time, even though the law prohibits killing animals in private centers. Politicians, activists, and animal rights NGOs warn that Suraia is not an isolated case, but rather the reflection of a system that has been dragging for years complaints of cruelty and economically incentivizing the sacrifice of dogs.

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Romanian city councils confine stray dogs in public shelters or private subcontractors, in a system that moves tens of millions of euros annually across the country.

A report documents serious irregularities

A parliamentary report prepared by independent deputy Aurora Tasica Simu denounces serious irregularities, including mistreatment and possible abuse by local officials and shelter managers. The document, presented in September after several inspections of shelters by lawmakers, describes places with emaciated dogs and abandoned puppies without water. The report also states that in the last 25 years, more than one billion euros would have been spent on sacrificing around 1.5 million dogs (almost seven every hour), while with those funds it would have been possible to sterilize 25 million animals. For the congresswoman, the system has favored for years an economic logic of capture and sacrifice, instead of betting on prevention. "We must investigate the extermination centers of defenseless animals, funded with public funds," asks Tasica Simu in statements to EFE in Bucharest. Romanian legislation stipulates that dogs found on the street become the responsibility of the municipalities and must be taken to shelters, where they must be identified, sterilized, vaccinated, returned to their owners, or given up for adoption.

Spay, Don't Trap or Kill

Sacrifices should be the last resort, after a minimum period of 14 days during which the animals can be claimed or adopted, and only if the local authority does not have sufficient space or resources to keep them. "There are many abuses and we are talking about deaths. That is why we ask the authorities to replace euthanasia with mass sterilization and to carry out checks in the shelters," Ioana Cosma, president of the Justice for Animals Association, tells EFE. In the same vein, Andra Darau, representative of the Kola Kariola association, argued that the best solution is a sustained campaign of sterilization and registration.  "The solution is not to catch and kill the dog. We have to sterilize them and start a real campaign. And we must understand the damage that abandonment does. If they are sterilized and registered with a microchip, in six years, at most, this problem would no longer exist," he assures EFE.

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Some associations that collect official data on the management of these animals indicate that in a decade more than 200,000 stray dogs died or were euthanized in shelters. Faced with that situation, volunteers like Gabriela Grecu recall that there are alternatives: since 2013 she has rescued 120 dogs and has found homes for many of them. "Social media also serves for this, to find someone who wants to take care of a pet," she emphasizes.