For those who want a more balanced perspective on this issue, please use the translation utility provided by Twitter/X to read about a recent conflict between economically poor locals who are under attack by street dogs and the far richer, settler-minded street dog enthusiasts who leave their gated community, travel 10 km to a desolate Istanbul ghetto, and feed street dogs in front of other (far, far poorer) peoples' homes. These psychopaths frequently have active instagram and social media accounts where they film themselves feeding these dogs (again, not in their backyard, in someone else's), and ask for donations over paypal so they can more dog food. Of course, there is no accounting of spend, so they make far more than they use on dog food. This is unsustainable, diabolical, and inhuman. It says a lot about the social destitution of Turkish society, but it is primarily a public health and government inaction problem that needs a reset.
“…by December 2023, the number rose to 15 million. An AK Party parliamentarian has said that in ten years’ time, they estimated the population to reach 60 million. Those numbers are probably inflated, and I’m not sure that the population growth would be quite as dramatic …”,
you seem to underestimate the power of exponential growth. It’s highly likely that, if current trends are not halted, in 10 years they might exceed 60 million.
Two reasons I doubt the 60 million projection: 1) I figured the factors behind the population boom (more food/space/sympathy) are finite and could be depleted, so the population could plateau before 60 million in ten years. 2) TRT News also has an incentive to inflate the threat and justify the AK Party's draft law.
Still feels like an important number, so I thought it's worth mentioning.
In my industry we are taught to never underestimate exponential growth curves :) If the numbers went up to the level of resource depletion and the dogs ended up going hungry, I’m sure the pro-street dog crowd would do everything in their power to sustain them and frame the problem as one of Turkish selfishness.
I don’t like personalizing debates like this but since your article started with a personal story I’ll describe why this issue bothers me so much.
We frequently spend summers in Izmir with my family. A few years ago my mom realized someone was putting dog food right in front of our house door. Mind you, this is a pretty wide, desolate street (in a “site”) with plenty of room and isolated acres where you could put this food. When my mom confronted the mentally unwell woman who was doing this she literally started screaming at her that we don’t live by ourselves in these streets and that we need to share them with our “friends”. She said that we were taking away these dog’s space. The dogs in question looked like some kind of Kangal, easily weighing as much as an adult man. We’re not talking about those cute small dogs in the streets of Cuba.
Just to emphasize, this strange woman was literally training these enormous feral dogs to expect food from our house even though we had nothing to do with these dogs nor have we ever released a domesticated animal out into the streets. These are not normal people and they would not be given a proper voice or any credibility in any country to the west and north of Turkey. This is just a fact. But Turkey is a such an unhinged insane asylum that not only are these people treated as brave activists but allowed to shape and influence legislation (like the infamous animal protection law that disallows municipalities from taking actually effective action to control these feral dogs populations).
Yeah I've had similar experiences in Izmir. There's definitely people who feed stray dogs (and cats) as a form of virtue signaling. I think they revel in the inevitable fights this causes with neighbors. Sometimes people are lonely and just drift into this sort of thing.
I think most people are pretty reasonable when it comes to this issue though. It has also now become a national problem and attitudes are shifting quickly. I think it'll be resolved, it's just a matter of when and how.
Australia too, but it's horses. Here is our equivalent of "Inauspicious Island" - a farm where feral horses were supposedly being re-homed, but instead ended up dead:
I might write a separate post at some point about how the perception of Western countries plays into this. Turkish politics is intensely occidentalist. A big part of society definitely feels ashamed of having this dog problem, thinking that Western ("civilized") countries don't have it. Other people try to puncture that bubble by pointing out that Western countries are actually secretly cruel to animals, and that they're simply better at hiding it. And those kinds of groups don't really map on to a pro/anti Erdoğan structure.
It's also something where behaviours in the West have sometimes changed quite recently with economic development and modernisation - the Irish Dept of Agriculture now displays this classic 1980s ad telling people not to let their dogs roam around outdoors at night as a literal anachronism (and Ireland still has a much bigger stray dog problem than Britain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EZvqTt9zoc
Selim, as you very well know (assuming you live in the US or UK), dogs and cats picked up from the street, or received from owners giving them up for adoption, are given a month or two before they are “put to sleep” (culled?), that is indeed how the “West” (i.e. any country that puts the needs of it’s citizens above the loud moral grandstanding of mentally ill dog-mamas/papas) does it. During Covid, due to the logistics of air travel at that time, I had to seriously consider giving up my cat for adoption in Canada and had to learn how they handle this issue. I was shocked to learn their impatience extends even to stray cats, who obviously don’t impart the same burden on society as stray dogs. Turkey doesn’t even have a dog problem per say, it’s the loud minority literally equating them to humans that is the problem.
I also noticed you didn’t explore the Syrian/Kurdish perspective, two groups that are considerably more brutal and violent towards dogs
I mean I live in a Western country and frankly the citizens are not particularly more intelligent or responsible or generous than Turks or other peoples yet their kids are able to play in the street without getting mauled by feral shepherd dogs. So clearly something is working here at a policy level. The sterilization option is not considered at the exclusion of the euthanasia option (they’re even extending that option to humans here so why should it I guess but that’s a different story :) )
I'm not sure what you mean. Stray dogs are definitely a problem. I also think that a loud (and rude) minority equating them to human beings is part of that problem. I'm clear about that.
I don't think we need to think of the problem in comparison to the West. That kind of thinking just muddies the waters.
Some culling seems appropriate, especially with problem dogs. I think mass culling would be crossing a moral line and should be avoided.
YRP campaigned heavily on the dog issue this year. They definitely sometimes sounded like they wanted mass culling, but Fatih Erbakan has recently started to say that he's against culling on religious grounds.
That's a very new position. I don't think it reflects where things are, but rather where things are going. My guess is that Erbakan is anticipating a shift in public perceptions and is positioning himself accordingly.
I definitely think it's a culture war issue though. A very clear one too.
For those who want a more balanced perspective on this issue, please use the translation utility provided by Twitter/X to read about a recent conflict between economically poor locals who are under attack by street dogs and the far richer, settler-minded street dog enthusiasts who leave their gated community, travel 10 km to a desolate Istanbul ghetto, and feed street dogs in front of other (far, far poorer) peoples' homes. These psychopaths frequently have active instagram and social media accounts where they film themselves feeding these dogs (again, not in their backyard, in someone else's), and ask for donations over paypal so they can more dog food. Of course, there is no accounting of spend, so they make far more than they use on dog food. This is unsustainable, diabolical, and inhuman. It says a lot about the social destitution of Turkish society, but it is primarily a public health and government inaction problem that needs a reset.
https://x.com/miroglu_usta/status/1809706522399895632
“…by December 2023, the number rose to 15 million. An AK Party parliamentarian has said that in ten years’ time, they estimated the population to reach 60 million. Those numbers are probably inflated, and I’m not sure that the population growth would be quite as dramatic …”,
you seem to underestimate the power of exponential growth. It’s highly likely that, if current trends are not halted, in 10 years they might exceed 60 million.
Two reasons I doubt the 60 million projection: 1) I figured the factors behind the population boom (more food/space/sympathy) are finite and could be depleted, so the population could plateau before 60 million in ten years. 2) TRT News also has an incentive to inflate the threat and justify the AK Party's draft law.
Still feels like an important number, so I thought it's worth mentioning.
In my industry we are taught to never underestimate exponential growth curves :) If the numbers went up to the level of resource depletion and the dogs ended up going hungry, I’m sure the pro-street dog crowd would do everything in their power to sustain them and frame the problem as one of Turkish selfishness.
I don’t like personalizing debates like this but since your article started with a personal story I’ll describe why this issue bothers me so much.
We frequently spend summers in Izmir with my family. A few years ago my mom realized someone was putting dog food right in front of our house door. Mind you, this is a pretty wide, desolate street (in a “site”) with plenty of room and isolated acres where you could put this food. When my mom confronted the mentally unwell woman who was doing this she literally started screaming at her that we don’t live by ourselves in these streets and that we need to share them with our “friends”. She said that we were taking away these dog’s space. The dogs in question looked like some kind of Kangal, easily weighing as much as an adult man. We’re not talking about those cute small dogs in the streets of Cuba.
Just to emphasize, this strange woman was literally training these enormous feral dogs to expect food from our house even though we had nothing to do with these dogs nor have we ever released a domesticated animal out into the streets. These are not normal people and they would not be given a proper voice or any credibility in any country to the west and north of Turkey. This is just a fact. But Turkey is a such an unhinged insane asylum that not only are these people treated as brave activists but allowed to shape and influence legislation (like the infamous animal protection law that disallows municipalities from taking actually effective action to control these feral dogs populations).
Yeah I've had similar experiences in Izmir. There's definitely people who feed stray dogs (and cats) as a form of virtue signaling. I think they revel in the inevitable fights this causes with neighbors. Sometimes people are lonely and just drift into this sort of thing.
I think most people are pretty reasonable when it comes to this issue though. It has also now become a national problem and attitudes are shifting quickly. I think it'll be resolved, it's just a matter of when and how.
Big problem in Georgia too https://www.ndi.org/publications/ndi-poll-georgian-citizens-remain-committed-eu-membership-nation-united-its-dreams-and
I think it's a big problem across many places in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Some have considered mass culling.
Australia too, but it's horses. Here is our equivalent of "Inauspicious Island" - a farm where feral horses were supposedly being re-homed, but instead ended up dead:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-26/nsw-suspends-wild-horse-rehoming-program/103771662
I might write a separate post at some point about how the perception of Western countries plays into this. Turkish politics is intensely occidentalist. A big part of society definitely feels ashamed of having this dog problem, thinking that Western ("civilized") countries don't have it. Other people try to puncture that bubble by pointing out that Western countries are actually secretly cruel to animals, and that they're simply better at hiding it. And those kinds of groups don't really map on to a pro/anti Erdoğan structure.
It's also something where behaviours in the West have sometimes changed quite recently with economic development and modernisation - the Irish Dept of Agriculture now displays this classic 1980s ad telling people not to let their dogs roam around outdoors at night as a literal anachronism (and Ireland still has a much bigger stray dog problem than Britain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EZvqTt9zoc
I like how the dogs transform into little monsters, then transform back into family dogs :)
Selim, as you very well know (assuming you live in the US or UK), dogs and cats picked up from the street, or received from owners giving them up for adoption, are given a month or two before they are “put to sleep” (culled?), that is indeed how the “West” (i.e. any country that puts the needs of it’s citizens above the loud moral grandstanding of mentally ill dog-mamas/papas) does it. During Covid, due to the logistics of air travel at that time, I had to seriously consider giving up my cat for adoption in Canada and had to learn how they handle this issue. I was shocked to learn their impatience extends even to stray cats, who obviously don’t impart the same burden on society as stray dogs. Turkey doesn’t even have a dog problem per say, it’s the loud minority literally equating them to humans that is the problem.
I also noticed you didn’t explore the Syrian/Kurdish perspective, two groups that are considerably more brutal and violent towards dogs
I mean I live in a Western country and frankly the citizens are not particularly more intelligent or responsible or generous than Turks or other peoples yet their kids are able to play in the street without getting mauled by feral shepherd dogs. So clearly something is working here at a policy level. The sterilization option is not considered at the exclusion of the euthanasia option (they’re even extending that option to humans here so why should it I guess but that’s a different story :) )
I'm not sure what you mean. Stray dogs are definitely a problem. I also think that a loud (and rude) minority equating them to human beings is part of that problem. I'm clear about that.
I don't think we need to think of the problem in comparison to the West. That kind of thinking just muddies the waters.
Some culling seems appropriate, especially with problem dogs. I think mass culling would be crossing a moral line and should be avoided.
Why are the super religious YRP against culling dogs? Doesn’t this undermine your argument about this being a culture war issue?
YRP campaigned heavily on the dog issue this year. They definitely sometimes sounded like they wanted mass culling, but Fatih Erbakan has recently started to say that he's against culling on religious grounds.
That's a very new position. I don't think it reflects where things are, but rather where things are going. My guess is that Erbakan is anticipating a shift in public perceptions and is positioning himself accordingly.
I definitely think it's a culture war issue though. A very clear one too.