Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
India is home to up to 60 million stray dogs—more than the populations of Canada or Australia. Streets are their homes. Trash is their buffet. Policy? Mostly absent.
One female dog. Two litters a year. Seven pups on average. Multiply that by millions. India's sterilization gap is not just a policy miss—it’s a math problem.
Where garbage thrives, so do strays. Poor waste management has created endless food chains for India’s street dogs—while cities fail to manage either.
Urban migration has a dark side: families abandon pets they can't care for. These dogs join street packs, breeding unchecked and forming new urban wildlife.
India’s cultural compassion for dogs often means feeding them—but rarely sterilizing them. That kindness may be unintentionally fueling an overpopulation crisis.
Strays aren't just bark and bite—they’re predators. From birds to reptiles, native wildlife is under pressure. Urban biodiversity is quietly shifting.
Laws forbid culling or relocating street dogs. So even sterilized strays are released back—often into chaotic, unmanaged urban ecologies.
India sees the highest rabies deaths globally. With millions of unvaccinated dogs roaming, every bite becomes a gamble with death.
Fewer strays = fewer bites. But also more rats, uncollected food waste, and gaps in urban life. Abrupt removal risks chaos, not calm.