Is poisoning the answer?

Here's an important question to ask yourself if you think that elimination (through poisoning or shooting or lethal injection) works :

IF THE GOVERNMENT OF CABO VERDE, BUSINESSES AND INDIVIDUALS HAVE BEEN POISONING DOGS FOR MANY, MANY YEARS, WHY DO WE STILL HAVE A PROBLEM?

According to experts there are only 3 ways to solve stray dog problems.
(1) To kill or remove every single fertile bitch.
(2) To remove the food source, i.e. somehow prevent animal lovers feeding unsupervised dogs and remove all rubbish from the streets so that the dogs starve to death.
(3) ‘Neuter and Return’. (ie sterilisation and return to the street)

“In the long term, control of reproduction is by far the most effective strategy of dog population management” – W.H.O., Geneva, Guidelines for Dog Population Management, page 72.

Extermination campaigns, for example the indiscriminate poisoning of dogs irrespective of whether they are neutered and vaccinated or indeed pets with owners, have never succeeded anywhere in the world.

Stray dog populations anywhere depend solely on the amount of food available. Nature adjusts the population to the carrying capacity of the territory. If just one fertile female escapes being killed or captured she can breed up to 67,000 offspring in 6 years. That is why killing dogs can never succeed unless every single female is exterminated.

If however the carrying capacity of an area is filled with sterile animals the population will gradually die out, providing no fertile dogs can infiltrate from surrounding areas.

“Removal and killing of dogs should never be considered as the most effective way of dealing with a problem of surplus dogs in the community: it has no effect whatsoever on the root cause of the problem.” – Guidelines for Dog Population Management, W.H.O. Geneva 1990 (page 74).

“In none of the study areas did the elimination of dogs by any method have any significant long term effect on dog population size.” –Report of W.H.O. Consultation on Dog Ecology Studies related to Rabies Control, Geneva, 22-25 February 1988 (page 11).