Town asks for bids to release stray dogs, pigs in Gir forest

Junagadh, August 27: Next door to Gir is Chorwad, a town on the Saurashtra coast which is relatively quiet except when holidayers head for the sea. But Chorwad’s municipality is now raising hackles all around for inviting bids from the public for a contract to cage stray dogs and pigs of the town and then release them in the forests of the Gir.

Ever since the municipality notice appeared in a Gujarati daily on August 20, there has been an uproar. While animal lovers are outraged over the plans to release the strays in the home of the Asiatic lion, forest officials are equally upset.

Bharat Pathak, Conservator of Forest (Wildlife), said: “To conduct any such practice is a serious offence and prohibited by law. We will simply not allow this. We are going to take up this issue with the civic body immediately. Releasing domestic animals in the forest area will be a wildlife disaster.”

Deputy Conservator of Forest (Girnar range) Anita Karan said: “The civic body cannot do this. We will not allow them to do it. We will write to them to stop this process.”

But Hirabhai Chudasama, president of the Chorwad Nagarpalika, believes this is the only way of getting rid of strays “without committing the sin of killing animals”.

“The menace of stray pigs and dogs in this town has become intolerable, rampant. Pigs are making our town look ugly, very unwanted. This is otherwise a seaside resort.” He said the local body had the option of killing strays “but we don’t want to commit this sin, so we have decided to release them in the Gir forests”.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.

Mail this page