Delhi's stray dog crisis grows as poor waste control and weak sterilization let numbers rise. Once man's best friend, can dogs and people find balance again?
00:01In India's capital Delhi, the human population co-exists with dogs, monkeys and other animals.
00:09A fragile urban ecosystem that is close to crisis.
00:13Why?
00:14The main issue is the masses of stray dogs, numbering an estimated 1 million.
00:20As they merely try to survive, they pose a danger to humans.
00:25In July 2025, a six-year-old girl died of rabies after being bitten by a dog in Delhi.
00:32The case sparked public outrage and a media storm and unleashed renewed debate on the dangers of street dogs.
00:43The facts are actually different from what is being portrayed in the media.
00:46Now, the numbers say that there are 20,000 deaths due to rabies.
00:50The parliamentary figures say that, you know, the deaths due to rabies are about 56 in the entire country.
00:56Now, of course, every death is a problem, right? So we're not trivializing this.
01:01Humans and dogs did once peacefully co-exist here.
01:04A balance that Asher Yasudov wants to restore.
01:08He advises authorities on animal welfare and runs a shelter on Delhi's outskirts where dogs roam freely.
01:16For him, animals aren't the problem, part of a long shared history, one that has been positive for millennia.
01:25Delhi's canine population has grown sharply in recent decades.
01:29Once, people respected and fed them, valuing how they kept rats out of temples and pests out of neighborhoods.
01:37But Delhi mushroomed. Its human population grew tenfold over the last 50 years.
01:43As new, anonymous neighborhoods sprang up, the bond with dogs shifted.
01:48Once friends, they came to be seen as threatening packs and potential disease spreaders.
01:54Generally, a dog bites because during mating season, when males are fighting over females.
02:02So they get really aggressive at that point in time.
02:04And generally, when a human passes by, humans can get bitten as well.
02:07Once a female dog has puppies, again, she tends to get aggressive because she's protecting her puppies.
02:14Another factor is human-caused climate change, which has been turning up the summer temperatures in Delhi.
02:22The resulting heat stress affects dogs too, weakening their immune system and making them more aggressive.
02:30Then there is the urban ecosystem.
02:32When stray dogs are hungry, they might resort to eating birds or hedgehogs.
02:37And Delhi's poor garbage management doesn't help either.
02:41The city generates over 11,000 tons of unsegregated solid waste every day.
02:47Dump yards are like open buffets for stray animals.
02:54Even if it is very toxic and full of plastics and inappropriate food, it will still be a source of food.
03:01And you will continue to have dogs milling around waste hotspot, around garbage vulnerable points.
03:09And as a result, no plan around dogs will ever work if you cannot manage your waste.
03:16Waste dumps act as feeding grounds for the strays, but are also a hotbed for rodents and other pests as well as monkeys.
03:25All scavenging for scraps.
03:27Moving dogs elsewhere as a quick fix only heightens the risk of rabies exposure when other carriers then move in.
03:36If you relocate dogs, like a lot of people say remove these dogs.
03:39If you remove them, then these wild animals or dogs from outside that are going to come,
03:43will not find these dogs to protect us.
03:46They will instead come and bite us.
03:48So the instances of rabies would actually go up.
03:52Rabies is one of the biggest fears linked to stray dogs.
03:56It's a zoonotic disease spreading from animals to humans.
04:02Rabies pose a real lethal threat when people do not get treatment after being bitten.
04:08While rabies is almost nearly always fatal, it's 100% preventable.
04:12So as soon as a dog bites, I think there are some protocols that have to be followed.
04:16One of the first things is you need to wash the wound in running water for 15 minutes with soap.
04:22And then you need to obviously go consult a doctor, get immediate post-bite vaccines and do whatever the doctor suggests.
04:30So don't take it lightly.
04:31How can the urban ecosystem regain its old balance?
04:35The WHO backs a so-called animal birth control program as the only humane and effective way using sterilization and vaccination.
04:44But in Delhi, it's poorly implemented, limited by too few trained staff, poor hygiene and weak oversight.
04:50The result has been a careless, badly administered program which has not achieved full efficiency and it has caused enormous cruelty to dogs who are taken, operated under less than perfect conditions, suffer broken stitches, intestines that fall out, released early releases.
05:09In the north of the city, one animal birth control center is trying a different approach.
05:15Local NGO neighborhood VOOF sterilizes up to 300 dogs a month and maintains a registry to monitor the animals vaccination and health.
05:26This is what we need.
05:28People counting their local dogs.
05:30People who live in the area should be included in a census.
05:34And now it's so easy, as I said with technology.
05:36So that's the role we are trying to play, bring in caregivers to the program and also improve the program at the state municipal level.
05:47Neighborhood VOOF joined forces with the local cafe to launch Feeding Forward, a program that distributes surplus food to street dogs.
05:56The idea is to reduce both waste and animal aggression, boosting public safety and public sympathy for the dogs.
06:03Regular feeding builds trust towards humans, which in turn makes sterilization and vaccination easier.
06:11In September 2025, the authorities introduced new rules designated feeding sports, mandatory registration and a monitoring body for sterilization programs.
06:23In the long term, it's about co-existence with that precious urban ecosystem depending on humans taking care of both the dogs and their own responsibilities.
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