Animal birth control unit at Ondipudur operational now

Coimbatore: City health officer Sathish Kumar said they were able to address more complaints of stray dog menace since the opening of the new animal birth control unit at Ondipudur 10 days ago. He said the unit at Seeranaickenpalayam alone could not meet the rising number of complaints from the city residents.
The officer said the Ondipudur unit, the constriction of which had begun in 2019 at a cost of Rs 36 lakh, was ready last year.
“However, it took time for us to finalize an NGO to run the birth control activities. And we were concentrating fully on Covid-19 pandemic last year,” he said when asked about the delay in opening the centre that is spread across 4,700sqft space.
He said around 30 to 40 stray dogs were caught in a day for the birth control activities. While the centre at Seeranaickenpalayam is taken care of by the Human Animal Society and caters to the wards in north and west zones of the corporation, animal birth control activities at the Ondipudur unit, which is dedicated to the remaining three corporation zones, is handled by the NGO Pranimithran.
Another health official with the city corporation said all the rules and regulations related to handling dogs while catching and releasing them were strictly followed.
“There are more than 40,000 stray dogs in the city. We, however, don’t have any data to show the exact numbers. Only a miniscule number of them is sterilized. We have displayed the numbers to be contacted for stray dog related complaints in all zonal and ward offices,” the official said.
He said the city corporation had to shut down the animal birth control unit at Ukkadam in March 2017 after the residents complained that the dogs were entering their locality by jumping off compound walls.