When cities drove out their dogs — and invited disaster - video Dailymotion

From Paris in the 1920s to Surat’s 1994 plague scare and Baghdad’s recent mass culls, history reveals a pattern.

Transcript

00:00Every time a city drives its dogs away, something worse creeps in.

00:03In 1994, Surat in Gujarat experienced a mnemonic plague outbreak that caused widespread panic

00:09and a mass exodus of residents.

00:11Activists pointed to the extermination of dogs before that.

00:14A government inquiry traced the outbreak to poor sanitation and environmental factors,

00:18not the absence of dogs.

00:20But the episode became a cautionary tale about what happens when predator-prey balance is disrupted.

00:25Without dogs to keep rat population in check,

00:27rodents multiplied unchecked, becoming perfect carriers for disease.

00:31With strays systematically removed, rodents thrived in the city,

00:34eventually leading to the spread of the dreaded disease.

00:37A concern being raised by activists even now.

00:40In the 1920s, Paris tried clearing its streets of dogs.

00:43It resulted in a sharp surge in rats,

00:45forcing public health authorities to scramble against the threat of plague.

00:48Even in more recent times, Iraq saw the cost of disrupting the predator-prey balance.

00:53In Baghdad, the city's mass culling of street dogs,

00:56often in the name of public safety,

00:58remove the crucial line of defense against rats and other vermin.

01:01Rodents sightings spiked, waste piled up, and diseased risk grew.

01:05Ecologists call this the mesopredator release effect.

01:08When you remove a predator from an ecosystem,

01:10its prey population explodes,

01:12often with devastating public health consequences.

01:14Studies from around the world show that predators like dogs, cats, and birds of prey

01:18help curb rodent-porn illnesses from plague to leptospirosis to salmonella.

01:22And it's not just in the past.

01:24Sydney today is in a grip of rat surge.

01:27Restaurant districts and construction zones are overrun with rodents,

01:30even making it into commuter trains.

01:32Public health experts now recommend Sterlai's vaccinate return programs,

01:36where dogs are vaccinated against rabies,

01:38neutered to control populations, and returned to their territories.

01:41This keeps rodent predators on the streets while reducing dog numbers humanely.

01:45Because every time a city pushes its dogs out,

01:48trouble always finds its way back in.