Wouldn't there be basically no dogs left in a couple year?
So just keep the program going for another 5 years or so and they wouldn't be catching very many dogs in the first place.
You may be amazed how many people don't see pets as responsibilities and either discard them for trivial reasons (like moving house) or let them breed and then dump the litter out to fend for themselves.
I think there were some problems from people breaking the poop bins and scattering the contents everywhere to reduce trust in the system ("it's not my fault, I cleaned up, someone took it out of the bin") but that wouldn't be a problem for strays right?
No. Plenty of people still won't sterilize their pets and abandon their litter in the street or some just run away or are lost or abandoned by their owners, therefore the stray dog population will never be absolute zero.
There is fundamentally no difference between animal consciousness and human in the buddhist view.
But to take it to a human level: you dont see a difference in (chemical) castration of people with mental disability and killing them?
Or in their own framework, did Bhutan just engage in genocide against an unwanted demographic?
If we were talking about a native species of bear, things would be entirely different.
taking lives of animals is a big thing in Buddhism
I think you can compare it with Christians, there are plenty of sinners.
Personally, I eat meat too, and I'm also not a huge fan of needlessly killing dogs, and I'm not even Buddhist! I feel like there's a middle ground where I can care about animals, respect life, and also have a cheeseburger. I'm certain some people will find that to be hypocritical, but it's really not a huge gotcha to me.
I think Buddhism in Bhutan likely did influence this course of action.
The himalayas they also traditionally kill animals for food. They basically consumed 3 things barley, yak products (meat and milk) and tea.
They didn't have much choice; was hard to grow anything else up in the mountains.But they were conscious about it and still careful but other animal lives.
It's not only because they care about the animal, but also very much about they are afraid of the karma they create for themselves.
Now in the refugee areas they prefer to buy their meat from the Islamic community ironically enough.
Also, wtf?
Your comment itself is contradictory is it not? If I am to understand "Also, wtf?" to mean something like "euthanising dogs is immoral because it shortens their life", your other argument is that sterilisation is superior because it essentially starves the other dogs. How is starvation morally superior to euthanasia?
Caveat: I actually also have the same emotional knee-jerk response. I own and love a dog very dearly, and the idea of just "getting rid of all the dogs" doesn't sit well with me.
My "also, wtf" stands.
If I may make an attempt at the moral underpinning, it is something like "survival as intrinsic worth". There are flaws to this position, as with any.
Granted, there are times when euthanasia would be necessary. For example, feral dog populations in areas where the vulture population has died off, where they carry disease and attack passersby and the supply of food is basically uncontrollable, I get it. But that's a case I personally would preemptively qualify if I were considering it.
Directly euthanizing them would definitely be more effective. Reality is just too grim for some people to admit.
Unless the problem really got out of hand, it's not just "some people" who oppose a total cull. Even if people silently approve of the cull, one will find much less volunteers for such an effort than for a large-scale sterilization and vaccination program.
It's hard for a small municipality with a stray problem to justify a facility that is entirely dedicated to the bureaucracy of scheduled death. This is a tale as old as time and the end result is not a happy one.
The term "kill shelter" is much more common than "shelter" because by nature a shelter is temporary housing before euthanization resources are available/confirmed.
Street dogs provide also some services that are valuable like rodent control or cleaning roadkills
I'm totally biased in that euthanizing animals isn't a decision humans are meant to take unless you do have a responsibility for the animal (it's your pet, and it's ill, for instance). But in this specific case, no single human or humans have a direct responsibility for hundreds or thousands of dogs.
The proposition on euthanizing stray animals looks just like a temporal, quick and dirty solution that teaches nothing to humans more than hiding the dirty under the carpet. Nothing after this will prevent stray animals to grow in number after some are reintroduced.
Moreover, it isn't surprising that such points of view like yours are shared as of today, if we stop to think how all those animals ended sick, malnourished, and unprotected. There are people that still think that animals shouldn't be sterilized because of their "will" to reproduce themselves, or are just too lazy to do so.