Bangkok Post : Wings and tails bug the BMA

EDITORIAL

Round One went to the pigeons of Sanam Luang this week for successfully defying the efforts of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to evict them. Attempts to move them to Ratchaburi and then to an alternative site in Prachin Buri were thwarted by opposition from residents of those two provinces.

Not that the pigeons would have stayed long before using their natural homing instincts to return to their nesting grounds at Sanam Luang. And while the project - to landscape and renovate the grounds - is commendable, it was folly not to have consulted pigeon fanciers first and asked them to handle the relocation. This is a 180-million-baht project financed by the Thai Khem Khaeng stimulus scheme and good intentions are not enough. Skilful planning and foresight are vital.

This is not the only time such qualities have proved elusive. Policy-makers at the BMA tend to lose their grip on reality when confronted by anything involving wings or a tail. Their recurrent nightmare is rarely pigeons but stray dogs running wild in alleys. Everyone knows that Bangkok, in common with other cities in Thailand, has an enormous stray dog problem and that there is an urgent need to take back our streets from these often diseased, frequently menacing and invariably pathetic animals. In fact, this year marks the 50th anniversary of a decree outlawing stray dogs in the capital. Yet an estimated 850,000 remain on its streets.

The usual way to curb an overpopulation problem like this is with proven animal control methods such as mass round-ups and the sterilisation of strays. The trap-neuter-return procedure for feral cats and dogs has shown good results elsewhere because it stops breeding. But this way was not the BMA's way. Municipal officials chose an easier path. The enactment of an ordinance 18 months ago put the heat on dog owners by requiring them to pay fees to have their house pets microchipped, sterilised and registered, with penalties of a 5,000-baht fine and confiscation of the pet for non-compliance. This remains in force.

Some irresponsible owners predictably do not bother to get their dogs microchipped or go through the necessary process of vaccination, spaying or neutering, getting sterilisation certificates and then registering the dogs at the district office in which the animal resides. They complain that it is expensive and overly bureaucratic. Instead, they dump their unfortunate dogs in the streets, at temples or abandon them on a beach outside the jurisdiction of the BMA. And, of course, there is no way to trace these selfish and thoughtless people because their dogs have no microchips and therefore no ID. The result of this tedious and bureaucratic licensing exercise is an increase in the stray dog population and a jump in the number of reported cases of rabies from nine in 2008 to 23 last year.

This scheme can only work if it is made part of a larger and more comprehensive process which removes the strays in addition to registering house pets. But this has never happened. The "owned" dogs targetted by this ordinance are not the problem; the "unowned" dogs in the community are and they continue to roam microchip-free and largely untouched, reliant on the good efforts of voluntary animal rescue charities.

To mount an offensive against one and not the other is self-defeating and smacks of the bureaucratic ploy of punishing the majority, in this case dog lovers, for the sins of the few and then pretending the problem has been solved. Citizens of Ratchaburi and Prachin Buri taught the BMA a lesson and were spared the pigeon-dumping because they rejected such muddled thinking.