Free-Roaming Dogs in Developing Countries: The Benefits of Capture, Neuter, and Return Programs

s a result of human population growth, poor waste disposal management, the absence of responsible dog ownership policies, and heightened awareness of animal welfare and disease issues, increased attention is being given to the problem of free-roaming dogs. The population of dogs worldwide may be as high as 500 million (Hsu, Severinghaus, and Serpell 2003). Dog-tohuman population densities vary from 2.2 dogs/hundred people in urban Zambia (DeBalogh, Wandeler, and Meslin 1993), to 15.8 dogs/hundred people in rural Tanzania (Cleaveland et al. 2003), to 21.3 dogs/hundred people in Katmandu, Nepal (Kato et al. 2003), and to more than 30 dogs/hundred people in white communities in South Africa (Odendaal 1994) and rural villages in Mexico (Orihuela and Solano 1995) (Table 1). Free-roaming dog populations have emerged as both animal welfare and public health problems in developing countries. Free-roaming dogs face high mortality, malnutrition, starvation, disease, and abuse; account for 99 percent of cases of rabies transmission worldwide (WHO 2004); and are associated with more than sixty other zoonotic diseases (Beck 2000; Reece 2005). Additional social problems with free-roaming dogs include road accidents, fighting, noise, bitten children, fecal contamination, spread of rubbish, and uncontrolled breeding. Public health and animal protection advocates share an interest in reducing dog population growth, improving the health of dog populations, and increasing responsible dog ownership. Approaches to freeroaming dog population management have changed over the past twenty years. Until recently, capture and kill policies prevailed as the primary dog-control method. While even today removal of dogs continues to be a component of dog control in some countries, the World Health Organization (WHO), leading researchers, and animal protection groups have condemned dog removal policies as ineffective and cruel. The 1990s saw a significant expansion in the availability of post exposure treatment for dog bites and in public awareness of the need to seek treatment. Postexposure treatment dramatically reduced rabies deaths; however, treatment costs soared. Dog-vaccination campaigns have proved less costly and more effective in rabies prevention. A meeting of WHO Asia experts concluded, Rabies control in dogs remains the only long-term, cost-effective means of eliminating or preventing most human cases. Human public health preventive measures should be paralleled by programmes for dog rabies control. (WHO 2001) Still, high levels of dog population turnover make it difficult to maintain vaccination coverage at threshold levels. A new consensus is emerging that rabies vaccination programs are not sustainable without sterilization, although some animal groups remain concerned about the appropriateness of returning sterilized animals to community streets. Vaccination, habitat control, and responsible pet ownership, including sterilization, are now replacing the capture-and-kill focus of dog control. In 1992 WHO and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) issued guidelines for dog population management that recommended dog population surveys; adoption of national legislation to regulate registration, vaccination, identification, sales, and breeding; public education, subsi-