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An NGO takes eight months to survey the strays in city

Thirty people, eight months, the latest equipment and a lot of patience. That was what an international NGO took to count the number of stray dogs on Delhi's streets. The figure is astounding: more than 2.6 lakh dogs.

But the counting process is equally fascinating.



"It was a daunting task that took us almost eight months. We cannot exactly count each dog but as they are territorial animals it became easy. We just had to identify the zones," said Karthik Satyanarayan, co-founder of Wildlife SOS, the NGO that undertook the first survey of stray dogs in the city.

The survey, which started in January, divided the city into 14 zones according to municipal jurisdictions. "A team of 30 people were selected and trained to count dogs. They were also given six vehicles with latest equipment," said Satyanarayan.

The NGO used Global Positing System to identify low and high population density areas. The people involved in the survey said technology played an important role to indentify roads and then to track the dogs.

"Generally, dogs don't move out of their territory. If a dog is spotted at one locality at Mayur Vihar, it won't walk over to the next road. So we were sure the same animal was not being counted twice. It is also easy to indentify the sterilised dogs from the non-sterlised ones. Sterilised animals have slight cuts in their ears," said Satyanarayan.

After counting, the data was tallied with people's reaction. "The resident survey threw up some interesting facts. Like about 66 per cent people feed stray dogs; only 50 per cent respondents were aware of the problem and only 20 per cent feared the animals," he said.

1.34 lakh male dogs
1.28 lakh female dogs
70 percent sterilisation target before Commonwealth Games
Rs 445 cost of sterilisation of one dog
Rs 3.5 crore sum spent in last 3 yrs
77,586 number of dogs sterlised in 3 yrs