Stray dog shot by municipality worker is fine: Mayor

ISPARTA

The mayor of the southern Turkish province of Isparta has said that a stray dog shot by a municipality worker before being thrown into a garbage truck is doing fine in an animal shelter. 

According to Demirören News Agency, the incident was recorded by a security camera in the Kuleönü area on Feb. 7. The district municipality’s workers were seen in the footage shooting a stray dog with a rifle and anesthetic bullets. The drugged dog was then seen thrown into a garbage truck.

“An investigation has been launched into the incident while administrative and legal actions are taken [against the workers],” Kuleönü Mayor Sezai Çakır said on Feb. 12.

The leaked footage stirred public outcry and local animal rights activists said they did not find any dog carcass in the landfill that the municipality garbage trucks use.

“They are throwing the stray dogs into the pressing machines in those trucks. We have learned that this was not the only shot animal as they have been doing it for a whole week,” Isparta Animal Protection Association President Sabri Kocabaş said, noting that they filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutor’s office.

Çakır confirmed the incident but said the dog was not killed and is currently under protection in a local animal shelter. He also questioned the animal rights activists’ motives.

“Municipality workers were unfortunately careless, and this footage gave us pain. But I should also say that the people who served this footage to the media are not aiming to punish the criminals. I am saddened that they listed us their demands in exchange of suppressing the leak of this footage,” he said.

According to the mayor, the municipality had received a complaint from a local that a stray dog attacked children in the street. Acting on this complaint, municipality workers went to the neighborhood to pacify the stray dog and transfer it to an animal shelter alive.

“The health of our dog, who was subjected to cruel treatment that saddened us all, is currently fine and under the care of our municipality’s animal shelter,” the mayor added, vowing to take legal action against those who made the “ugly offer” to suppress the leaked footage.