Does Clearing the Streets Solve the Problem?

Türkiye’s street dog issue has long been debated between two extremes: people’s safety concerns and animals’ right to life. A healthy society need not choose between them. A system protecting people without cruelty is possible. The question is whether we provide the knowledge, funding, oversight, and political will to build it.

Collection is now presented in many places as “the problem solved.” Yet removing an animal from sight does not remove the conditions that produced it. A vehicle can collect a dog, but cannot collect uncontrolled breeding, abandonment, unregistered ownership, insufficient sterilization, and irresponsibility. Are we clearing streets, or establishing a lasting solution?

Law No. 7527, adopted in 2024, substantially changed the system for unowned animals. Implementing regulations detailed collection, transfer to facilities, rehabilitation, accommodation, and adoption. The aim is protecting public safety, human and animal health, and the environment together. No mother should fear sending a child to school, and nobody should live fearing attack. Equally, no living creature should face hunger, thirst, illness, or mistreatment behind closed doors.

A regulation’s real value emerges in implementation. Collection is easy; guaranteeing where, how, and for how long animals live is difficult. Does every collected animal have a record number? Are vaccinations and health checks performed? Is daily capacity published? Are deaths, illness, and adoption independently audited? Without answers, facts disappear from view alongside animals.

A dog cannot live healthily in any space simply supplied with food and water and locked. It is social, needing movement, interaction, mental stimulation, and security. Overcrowding, continuous noise, uncontrolled group housing, and inactivity can produce fear, aggression, withdrawal, and behavioral problems. Working in dog training, I can say plainly that behavior often reflects the conditions in which an animal is kept.

Poor facilities can make calm dogs aggressive. Appropriate assessment, training, and socialization can make many apparently difficult dogs safely adoptable. Veterinary care must be accompanied by behavior assessment and rehabilitation. Animals should be separated according to age, health, temperament, and compatibility, and adoptive families receive basic training. Success means healthy, safe, lasting adoptions, rather than how many animals are collected.

Ministry figures announced in 2024 estimated about four million unowned animals without rehabilitation. Between 2004 and 2023, local authorities sterilized approximately 2.5 million, vaccinated more than 2.8 million, and arranged 533,000 shelter adoptions. These numbers represent important work but prompt questions about why twenty years did not produce a lasting solution. Sterilizing street animals is insufficient while uncontrolled breeding and abandonment continue. Collecting animals while new ones are left outside resembles filling a container with no bottom.

Microchipping and registration are therefore more than bureaucracy. Identifying abandonment, regulating breeding, and tracing sales are essential. Setting human safety against animal rights has been a major mistake. Protecting a child and preventing cruelty to a defenseless animal are both fundamental measures of civilization. Cruelty is unnecessary to protect people; dismissing genuine safety concerns in the name of animal love is equally wrong.

The solution requires a scientific, accountable system. Municipalities should publish regular data, open facilities to independent inspection, train collection teams, expand sterilization, and follow up with adoptive families. Trainers, veterinarians, behavior specialists, authorities, and voluntary organizations should work together. Schools should teach safe and appropriate interaction with animals, since ignorance increases fear and fear can increase violence.

Streets can be cleared temporarily. But poorly managed shelters, uncontrolled breeding, abandonment, and unaccountable local government merely move the problem elsewhere. Civilization is judged by its treatment of defenseless people, animals, and nature, alongside opportunities offered to the powerful. We need a system protecting human safety and animals’ lives, using scientific methods and accounting for every expenditure and action. Clearing streets may create an appearance. Future generations, as well as people living today, will see what we chose.