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Sat, May 25 2013
Carnage at Sofia Zoo as Sofia's stray dogs strike again
Photo: Georgi Kozhouharov
An archive photo taken at Sofia zoo in May 2008.
Photo: Julia Lazarova
A pack of stray dogs got into the grounds of the Sofia Zoo and killed a total of 15 animals, including deer and fawn, Bulgaria's bTV reported on January 31 2010.
The incident occurred a week ago. Apparently, the pack of strays got into the the deer enclosure via a car park near the fence. Having climbed a structure in the parking lot, the pack then jumped into the zoo grounds.
BTV said that the animals were "ruthlessly dismembered" and only the large male deer survived as they fended off the strays with their antlers.
"The dogs came in through that parking area. No one bothered to ask me if they could built this here or not. I received no warning. Unfortunately, this is how the incident must have happened," Ivan Ivanov, Sofia Zoo director told bTV.
Zoo staff who failed to prevent the attack have been punished. Reportedly, they were unarmed at the time, but in the aftermath of the attack, staff have been issued with gas pistols.
"This incident could have been easily prevented," Ivanov was quoted as saying. "Now every shift is issued three gas pistols," he said.
New animals have been ordered to replace the ones killed in the attack. They will be supplied to Sofia Zoo from various nature parks and other zoos in the country.
Vicious attacks by stray dogs in Bulgaria are not uncommon. Many Sofians, as well as Bulgarians across the country, are frequent subjects of harassment, and sometimes violent attacks.
On October 19 2009, a pack of stray dogs dismembered a six-year-old girl, Kristiana Marinova, from the Razgrad village of Topchii.
The girl was spending the weekend with her grandmother in the village of Sushevo when a pack of dogs attacked her while she was on her way to the grocery shop. The dogs attacked her savagely and repeatedly, with one canine tearing into her throat. The pack was eventually dispersed by shopkeeper Kassim Zuhtyo.
The dogs reportedly belonged to 49-year-old teacher Elena Bankova who has about a dozen dogs in her garden, which reportedly have free access to and from the yard and are often seen in the village, chasing cars and terrorising locals.
The Sofia Echo witnessed a case when a pack of stray dogs attacked an elderly woman in the park at Ritualna Zala in the Sofia borough of Hipodrouma in the beginning of January 2010; only the swift reaction of several young men who were at a nearby bench prevented the situation from escalating further.
In 2007, British woman Ann Gordon died after being attacked in the Bulgarian village of Nedyalsko.
According to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), as of September 2009, there were more than 8500 stray dogs in Sofia alone.
The incident occurred a week ago. Apparently, the pack of strays got into the the deer enclosure via a car park near the fence. Having climbed a structure in the parking lot, the pack then jumped into the zoo grounds.
BTV said that the animals were "ruthlessly dismembered" and only the large male deer survived as they fended off the strays with their antlers.
"The dogs came in through that parking area. No one bothered to ask me if they could built this here or not. I received no warning. Unfortunately, this is how the incident must have happened," Ivan Ivanov, Sofia Zoo director told bTV.
Zoo staff who failed to prevent the attack have been punished. Reportedly, they were unarmed at the time, but in the aftermath of the attack, staff have been issued with gas pistols.
"This incident could have been easily prevented," Ivanov was quoted as saying. "Now every shift is issued three gas pistols," he said.
New animals have been ordered to replace the ones killed in the attack. They will be supplied to Sofia Zoo from various nature parks and other zoos in the country.
Vicious attacks by stray dogs in Bulgaria are not uncommon. Many Sofians, as well as Bulgarians across the country, are frequent subjects of harassment, and sometimes violent attacks.
On October 19 2009, a pack of stray dogs dismembered a six-year-old girl, Kristiana Marinova, from the Razgrad village of Topchii.
The girl was spending the weekend with her grandmother in the village of Sushevo when a pack of dogs attacked her while she was on her way to the grocery shop. The dogs attacked her savagely and repeatedly, with one canine tearing into her throat. The pack was eventually dispersed by shopkeeper Kassim Zuhtyo.
The dogs reportedly belonged to 49-year-old teacher Elena Bankova who has about a dozen dogs in her garden, which reportedly have free access to and from the yard and are often seen in the village, chasing cars and terrorising locals.
The Sofia Echo witnessed a case when a pack of stray dogs attacked an elderly woman in the park at Ritualna Zala in the Sofia borough of Hipodrouma in the beginning of January 2010; only the swift reaction of several young men who were at a nearby bench prevented the situation from escalating further.
In 2007, British woman Ann Gordon died after being attacked in the Bulgarian village of Nedyalsko.
According to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), as of September 2009, there were more than 8500 stray dogs in Sofia alone.
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Read Minkov. BG is a very "exclusionist" culture, meaning that it is quite common for people to have little care for the welfare of strangers they don't know. Concern for the bigger society is not common.
M Robinson above suggests educating the next generation, but simple Western style education will NOT solve the issue, because of the majority Bulgarian "exclusionist" psyche.
This is not an issue of money but attitude and culture. There are free neutering centres around the country. Poor doesn't mean cruel or ignorant unless educated thus. Lets help educate the next generation into being more compassionate to vulnerable human and non human animals. A better Bulgaria for all I hope.
http://bulgariadogs.webs.com/contactus.htm#4750807
The people are to blame not the stay animals. Stray animals don't attack for no reason.
The 'do gooders' don't take into account that with this recession, high unemployment & low wages most Bulgarians can't afford to spey & neuter their pets. I've witnessed first hand the municipalities policy of castrating dogs which only allowed certain vets a cushy well paid job. The local vet would wait for the strays to have litters before taking action thereby protecting his supply. Castrated dogs are being returned to the streets to live a poor life & often become more aggressive. The faeces they produce stink & could cause diseases especially to the young & elderly. POISON is not [...]
Read the full comment the way forward as it is indiscriminate & the dogs suffer an inhumane death. However, i believe that instead of the expense of neutering that once the vet has darted a stray he should put them to sleep. A neutering service should be provided to low income families who normally abandon new litters which increases the stray population.
Valeri........your comments towards other peoples comments are rather nasty lady.
KW............ so you would like to poison the dogs. How callous of you. Finding them a loving home does not enter your head then ?
Valeri, you crack me up. I usually don't agree with you, but you crack me up.
I do agree the expats living here need to get off their pedastools and stop acting like princesses.
And I do agree, it is usually the idiots who can't take care of dogs who leave them as strays. Sad, but true. Everyone has to be responsible. If you get a dog, you should take care of it for it's life. The mentality of it's not my problem has to change to move forward. Not just for [...]
Read the full comment strays, but for everything.
This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content
KW,
I didn't count the dogs, so it's hard to say which third world countries have more of them, but the point you missed was that I am not going back - something I've been recomending to ivan for a while now;)
Funny how the answer is always to kill the dogs instead of fining and punishing idiot owners who are really ultimately responsible. Seems always to be the answer by humans....KILL. Maybe if people were responsible, neutered or spayed their animals and kept them fed properly, and didn't dump them when they became "inconvenient", there wouldn't be this kind of problem in Bulgaria and other nations.
It is the fault of people, NOT the dogs. Period. How about we kill all the idiots owners instead?
I feel better knowing that other 3rd world countries have more street dogs then BG. I am still doing my part (in Sofia and the village I live in) killing off strays. Black poison works well so does anti-freeze. Have you noticed fewer dogs around the seminary? Even men of the cloth are killing them off!
that was a very stupid comment Valeri
!
".. Anne from the UK killed by dogs, .."
More Bulgarians get hurt by drunken Brits, than Brits by dogs in BG. What are you gonna do about that problem?
Dianne:
"Animals should not be kept in a zoo, they should be free.."
Oh but they are now free Dianne! They are roaming free in the next life, running wild, doing whatever it is animals do... They are in a better place, I tell you;)
Full moon again Dianne?
Cosmos:
"Thats what I am trying to say I do not have a problem visiting,.."
you are gonna have to make up your mind here - it's either a problem or not. You keep coming back, obviously it isn't a problem for you, so what's with the bitching?
I've been to many places that are completely incomprehensible to me. Pakistan is one. The street dogs were the least of their problems. I was just happy to get out of there, and the last thing I'd do is get [...]
Read the full comment on their web sites to tell them how much they suck. Put it this way (I know that in your end of town folks are partial to more explicit analogies) - Pakistan and I had a one night stand. Obviously after that, I'll never call or write, and getting on their web sites, like you and that other Swedish unemployed on here, is the equivalent of to keep calling the ugly girl you spent a night with. Isn't it a bit desperate - move on...
Not again this is a shame what are the people of this community doing and how come the desition makers in this towns are not doing anything regarding to wild dogs?
What has BG got ?
Abandoned dogs by the thousands,
Abandoned cars by the thousands,
Abandoned children,
Yes it is the fault of the people.
if they dont like it dump it you see it everyday.
Thats what I am trying to say I do not have a problem visiting,but I do want to feel safe so less talk and more action what a backward country will it ever change.
Lol, from those posting of our esteem "tortured visitors," you'd thing that there is some sort of "compulsory hard time in BG", that they all have to go through before graduation or something...
Don't visit Cosmos, what's the problem?
I am sorry to say that yet again I hear that its everyones problem, well I have to say that is rubbish,I am a visitor to your country and I do not wish to be bitten by your stray dog problem, cull the lot and stop just talking about it.
Like I said, "angliski expat", continue to be complacent and do nothing but complain. But please, continue to sit on your lazy backside while others in Bulgaria work hard at attempting to mitigate the problem.
So, for the time being, put up or shut up.
Everybody blaming someone else.... The Director blames those who built an illegal parking lot AND his staff.
Don't re-stock the zoo until ALL precautions have been taken.
Better, don't re-stock the zoo. Leave the animals in (decent) nature parks.
bg promised to deal with this dog problem & failed, how can anyone be encouraged to do business(which is the only carrot in bg)when the people in charge cannot even sort this BASIC problem out. No other EU country would put its citizens at risk like this. Anne from the UK killed by dogs, a 6 yr old child, elderly. Also the fucking dog owners have no idea how to control their dogs, their attitude is the typical 'rakia' answer, 'oh it will be ok' . Crap roads & ferral dogs welcome to Absurdistan.
In fact, all Boiko Borisov's team including servant quasi-NGO's did not consider factors influencing dog population size; and relevant components of the effective dog population management. Regretely, the new Sofia mayor Fandakova did not accept adequate strategy to solving problem too.
Two years ago, ICAM Coalition bublished a short and comprehensible guidelines on how to deal wiht dog population dynamix. All above mentioned components were discussed. That are (1) Education, (2) Legislation, (3) Registration and identification, (4) Sterilisation and contraception, (5) Shelters, (6) Euthanasia, (7) Controlling access to resources and (8)Vaccination.
Instead, [...]
Read the full comment former Ekoravnovesie chief and current agriculture minister Miroslav Naidenov spent in recent years totally between 3 and 4 million leva to "manage" Sofia dog population problem. But illegal dealers of unsupervised animals are the primary cause for total neglection of the probelm. So described nuisances and conflicts are just the symptoms of a deliberately supported mess.
well you do it then american expat.
if any of these animals injured my children i would kill them straight away. crying or not what a load of rubbish . no more said.
American Expat you are so right: "The problem is not dogs, it's people. "
And Mary, you feel sorry for the animals in the Zoo. Animals should not be kept in a zoo, they should be free.
Ghandi said you can tell a countries people by the way it treats its animals....
TNR is the way to go
To those of you who posted 'to kill them', you should know that this has been tried in many places, with disastrous results. The dogs always come back and in even greater numbers. It's a lazy solution, not to mention disgusting and inhumane.
The problem is not dogs, it's people. People dump and abandon dogs here every day. Of course, these dogs are not spayed or neutered, which only adds to the existing problem. There are so many non-profit, volunteer groups in Bulgaria trying to alleviate the stray dog problem via responsible and humane spaying, neutering, [...]
Read the full comment and adoption, where possible. But this work is undone when irresponsible people dump and abandon dogs.
No improvement will be seen here until people understand that it's not 'someone else's job' or the 'government's job' to find a humane solution to this problem, but everyone's job, and everyone is responsible for these strays. If you don't like it, then I challenge you to get involved and work with a reputable non-profit who is working every day to responsibly manage overpopulation via spaying and neutering.
If you aren't willing to work to make something better, then stop crying.
I feel really sorry for the zoo animals - and the authorities
should bear in mind this could have happened to a human - who might sue. I tend to agree with others who advocate killing them
- there are too many to take them all off the streets.
This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained off-topic content
This comment has been removed by the moderator because it contained foul, abusive or discriminating language
Yet again we hear about these stray dog attacks but nothing is done about it. (When will action be taken how many more times will we read about this)
It is time for people to start taking care of this problem. A small amount of black poison from the ladies market will work for several dogs. As for the 8500 strays I bet there is that many in Dianas Bath alone.