Between Compassion and Control: India’s Struggle with Street Animals

The article “Between Compassion and Control: India’s Struggle with Street Animals” will examine the escalating stray animal crisis in India as a predictor of the inadequacy of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, which mandate sterilisation and vaccination without relocation. It compares the Indian approach to global leaders, such as the launch of the zero-stray program in the Netherlands and the community-based integration of Turkey, with the need to change the system, implement it strictly, and use evidence-based humane interventions to address the challenges of people's and animals' health.

The problem of stray animals in India is a complex nexus of social issues in terms of human health, urban planning and sometimes even more in animal welfare. It is estimated that there are tens of millions of stray dogs and cats roaming across urban areas, and so what has become a constant menace to municipal governments and civil society actors, as well as the policy makers themselves. Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, is an example of such a legislative response to this crisis to alleviate the same through sterilisation and vaccination campaigns conducted by local authorities in co-operation with organisations authorised by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI). However, the success of these regulations strongly depends on the sufficiency of the infrastructural facilities, the level of involvement of people, and the sustainability of efficient monitoring tools.

The current article questions the extent and limits of the current legal system in India, as it is placed in the framework of the international context. The discourse of animal stray management foresees alternative paradigms of stray animal management in countries like the Netherlands, Turkey, and Sri Lanka, where humane treatment and the safety of the people have been realized. This comparative outlook concentrates on the need for India to adopt a more integrated, data-driven, and community-based outlook. Finally, the article recommends new policy changes, governance ethics, and participatory systems to transform the stray animal environment in India into a paradigm that would be both compassionate and responsible at the same time. India's struggle with street animals is a complex issue balancing human safety concerns and the constitutional mandate for animal compassion. The debate, which traces back to colonial-era extermination policies

The Apocalypse of the Strays in India

The stray animal problem in India is an example of a complicated relationship between demographic tendency, infrastructural insufficiency, and policy failure, with severe consequences related to the health of people, city security, and ethical management. The phrase "Apocalypse of the Strays" in India refers to the complex and escalating national crisis involving a massive stray dog population, public health risks like rabies, and recent legal interventions by the Supreme Court.

Magnitude of the Crisis
India has had one of the largest numbers of stray dogs and cats in the world, with almost 60-62 million stray dogs in the country. This is an unevenly distributed population with most of it in urban and peri-urban places, where there is a high rate of food wastage, inadequate shelter, and contact between man and animal. Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and many other large towns record tens of thousands of cases every year of dog-bites; Delhi alone in the first half of 2025 demonstrates over 35,000 of these incidents in a year. An additional fact to exacerbate the crisis is the fact that India is the cause of about 36  percent of worldwide rabies fatalities or 18000-20000 deaths annually, which is mainly caused by stray dog attacks.

Urbanisation and Failure in Waste Management
The progress in urbanisation has overshadowed the establishment of proper waste disposal and animal control systems. There are open dumping areas and improper food waste used as feeding grounds to stray animals, thus contributing to the increase in population and clustering of territories. The dwellings in informal settlements and the slums often do not have municipal authority, and this provides ecological niches that support a thriving stray population. This is further aggravated by the lack of organized segregation and disposal of wastes, which means that urban centres are the breeding and warring grounds of stray animals.

Violation of the law and Administrative Loopholes
Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, attempt to resolve the crisis by using the method of sterilisation and vaccines, but the adopted approach relies on sporadic implementation. These programmes are compulsory to be implemented by the local authorities together with the AWBI-approved organisations; however, most municipalities do not have the financial resources, veterinary infrastructure, and trained staff to implement the recommendations. Alongside, the CNVR (Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return) model does not allow the practice of relocation, making it difficult to deal with aggressive or high-risk groups in a decreased-density setting.

Culture and Community Actions
Indian culture is divided into two perspectives. In many communities, strays are fed and taken care of, in others; they are seen as threats or nuisances. This binary produces divided popular participation and poor agreement on humane methods of management. There are infrequent and underfunded campaigns of public education on responsible pet ownership, prevention of rabies, and ethical treatment of animals, hence undermining the grassroots support of sustainable and long-term solutions.

Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023

Legal reaction to the Indian stray animals’ crisis has developed and changed alongside the establishment of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, to respond to the necessity of ensuring humane treatment, alongside the demands of humane health and safety. The Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023 are a set of regulations from the Indian government that supersede the 2001 rules to manage stray animal populations humanely. Key aspects include sterilizing and vaccinating stray animals, mandating that local authorities must be recognized by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) to conduct programs, and assigning the responsibility of feeding community animals to Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) or local bodies.

Legislative Basis and Aim
Since the notification of the rules was done under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the rules are called the ABC Rules, 2023, which replace the previous ABC (Dog) Rules, 2001. Such regulations require local authorities to establish sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination campaigns of stray dogs and cats in cooperation with agencies that are certified by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI). The major goal is population management using the Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (CNVR) approach that discourages the transfer of the animals out of their own surroundings to ensure the ecology may remain harmonized, and the pack is less hostile.

Working Mechanism and Institutional Roles
The municipalities have, under the ABC framework, the responsibility of finding stray populations, organising sterilisation and other vaccination programs, and keeping records of the treated animals. The participation of AWBI-approved agencies will make sure that all regulations are followed in terms of humane standards and veterinary regulations. The rules, however, are costly in terms of operations and finances to the local bodies, with many of them not having sufficient infrastructure, skilled staff, and budgetary provisions. The Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) has given advisories to state governments to enhance implementation, but compliance is still inconsistent at the regional level.

Judiciary Intrusions and Policy Strains
The ABC framework has been complicated by recent orders of the Supreme Court. In November 2025, the Court directed the clearing of the high-footfall places of congregation, like schools, hospitals, and transport centres, of stray dogs, who are required to be moved to registered shelters after sterilisation and vaccination. This decision conflicts with the model of CNVR, leading to criticism by the animal welfare societies, who believe that by relocation, ecological stability is disrupted and animals are likely to become more aggressive due to the uprooting. The conflict between court prescriptions and evidence-based policy making is an expression of a larger issue of legal implementation in terms of balancing between lawful adherence, on the one hand, and kind and scientific application, on the other.

Political Repression and Criminalization
With more and more confrontations, indigenous activists directly face criminalization while defending their territories. Monitoring, coercion, and legal harassment have already become the common methods of oppressing dissent. The demonstration at COP30 was not just a demand for climate justice, but also a denunciation of state violence. The mobilization in an international forum enabled the Indigenous groups to be heard more and hold the national governments as well as global institutions responsible.

Global measures for Stray Animal Control

The world models of stray animal control provide a continuum of context-dependent approaches that strive to balance the health concerns of the populace, the animal welfare needs, and the civic duty. These paradigms present the necessary critical insight that can be utilized to reform the current regulatory framework in India. Global measures for stray animal control include comprehensive strategies like Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (CNVR), which involves sterilizing, vaccinating, and releasing animals back into their territories.

Case of the Netherlands
The country that is often mentioned as the first country to achieve a zero stray dog population is the Netherlands. This has been attributed to a complex plan that combines national free sterilisation initiatives, tough laws against abandonment, and high taxes on the purchase of pets in order to discourage ex-post facto ownership. The state has also invested much in well-financed shelters, an animal police constabulary, and a prolonged publicity campaign, thus developing a full-fledged culture in which breeding is not the dominant practice. The Dutch paradigm is a key to the demonstration of how the cooperation of legal enforcement, civil participation, and state-supported infrastructure can be used to totally eliminate stray populations without the intervention of culling.

Case of Turkey
Another pattern can also be considered in Turkey, whereby stray animals are not eliminated but are included in urban ecosystems. The Turkish laws provided an obligation to give food, vaccination, and sterilisation of stray dogs and cats by the municipalities, and citizens take part in the welfare of cats and dogs most often. In the form of feeding stations and shelters, the voting has been provided in the public parks and thoroughfares. It is based on a cultural philosophy of caring and a legal status of animals as living beings. The Turkish experience shows that coexistence and not segregation can also be institutionalised by including urban planning and by statutory requirements.

Case of Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan government has followed a pragmatic approach which focuses on mass sterilisation and vaccination, usually in partnership with the international non-governmental organisations. The government has avoided culling to adopt a humane population control that is provided by mobile veterinary units and community outreach programs. These efforts have been supplemented by public education campaigns that help in discouraging irresponsible ownership and the prevention of rabies in pets. Despite the ongoing difficulties in the rural setting, the experience of Sri Lanka demonstrates the importance of cross-sectoral collaborations and networked mobile in expanding humane interventions.

India: Comparative Insights
These universal designs heavily stress the need to have context-sensitive adaptation, law clarity, and community involvement. Although the Netherlands is a model of systemic eradication, Turkey and Sri Lanka reveal advantages of coexistence and decentralised care. In the case of India, the introduction of factors like free sterilisation, government education, and legal responsibility, complemented by the good municipal capacity, would help to improve the effectiveness of the ABC Rules, 2023, significantly.

Way Forward

A multidimensional approach involving legal, civic, and technological changes is needed to tackle the crisis of stray animals in India to have the coefficient of humane, positive, and sustainable results.

Policy Reforms
The existing legal system, as the example by the ABC Rules, 2023, offers a humane base on which to approach stray animals’ management; its limitations in operating, however, require specific actions. The local governments must be empowered with specific funding, qualified veterinary services, and high-level surveillance systems to make it easier to strictly execute sterilisation and vaccination programs. Also, the law should provide more transparency, especially on the Supreme Court’s order on relocation conflict with the CNVR model (Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return). Long-term success requires the introduction of a national policy that harmonizes judicial needs and empirically best practices and holds all jurisdictions accountable.

Community Involvement and Education
The effective management of the stray populations needs to be ethical and sustainable, with the involvement of the people. Sensitization programs on responsible pet keeping, prevention of rabies, and human treatment of animals should be incorporated in the school curricula, the urban planning procedures, and the media outreach programs. The local communities can be involved in active roles of spotting the unsterilized animals and reporting the bite cases, as well as supporting animal feeding and shelter programmes. These can be achieved by enabling Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and volunteers through specific training and incentive mechanisms, thereby developing a culture of shared responsibility and compassion.

Information Technology and Data Governance
The digital technologies have great potential to improve the effectiveness and the transparency of stray-animal management. It is possible to use mobile applications to streamline the municipal processes and to track sterilised animals to simplify the incident reporting and organisation of the rescue procedures. Through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and superior analytics, the distribution of stray animal hotspots, the evaluation of intervention outcomes, and proper resource distribution can be done. An online database of treated animals would also be centralised to facilitate the coordination and curb unnecessary duplication of efforts by the local authorities and NGOs.

Collaborative models and cross-sectoral partnerships

The adoption of shared models that incorporate the government agencies, civil societies, and international organisations will be of immense advantage to India. The process of capacity expansion can be conducted with the help of strategic partnerships with the veterinary educational institutions, animal welfare associations, and international non-governmental organizations, and thus help to share the information and provide technical assistance. The pilot project implementation can be used as a methodological technique to measure the effectiveness of scalable interventions in high-density urban settings. Conclusively, the attempts to change the scene in stray animal management in India should be based on an innovation-based participatory governance paradigm that is founded on moral principles.

Conclusion

The stray animal crisis in India requires a multidisciplinary solution, which entails a legal reform coupled with an institutional capacity development to meet and engage the community. The Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, despite being a progressive policy change, are a policy that requires solid implementation, inter-agency collaboration, and involvement of the people. The comparative studies between the models in the world demonstrate the necessity of a community combustion, free sterilisation initiatives, and data-metallized governance. In the future, a holistic mode of thinking incorporating a balance between the needs of human health and ethical animal welfare should be implemented, which is promoted by technological progress and continuous awareness of the population. This kind of attitude will help to make the present crisis a chance to achieve inclusive, caring, and evidence-based urban governance.