Bulgarian Animal Welfare Group Moves to Rescue Stray Dogs

An amicable specimen of Bulgaria's notorious stray dogs rolls on the ground as people play chess in Sofia's National Theater Park. Photo by BGNES

A Bulgarian NGO has moved to tackle the major challenges in dealing with the stray animal overpopulation problem in Sofia and the country.

According to the Bulgarian Society for Animal Protection and Preservation, the country's society is not educated enough about the overpopulation problem. They have pointed out the fact that cruelty against animals is not incriminated in Bulgaria as a major issue, Global Animal has reported.

The organization has also stated that taxpayer money is wasted on ineffective municipal programs and not enough stray animals are sterilized to reach the impact threshold percentage of 70% of animals sterilized for TNR (trap-neuter-release) to start showing a tangible effect.

The BSAPP “firmly believe(s) that sterilization is the only way to humanely bring under control the stray dog and cat population and improve animal and human welfare in the long run.”

Bulgaria's homeless animals "are exposed to the constant risk of death or maiming by accidents, illness, starvation, abuse and disappearing in the infamous isolators of Bulgaria," according to the BSAPP.

There are about 10 000 officially registered stray dogs in Sofia. Some 70 000 dogs have been registered wandering the streets of Bulgaria as a whole.

An average of 800-900 cases of tapeworm infection are registered in Bulgaria each year. This number constitutes as much as 54% of the total instances per year in the whole EU.

The number of stray dogs in Bulgaria's capital Sofia will decrease drastically over the course of the next 2-3 years, the city's Mayor, Yordanka Fandakova, recently declared.

Fandakova will seek "humane ways" to get rid of the stray dog problem,

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