Election approaching - Stray dogs in Penang safe

Star Online - Batu Ferringhi gets one-star rating on TripAdvisor after dog attacks (extracts):

A dog chasing away the birds from its 'territory' on the Batu Ferringhi beach

GEORGE TOWN: No tourist destination can avoid negative reviews – there’s always an unhappy camper or two – but the Batu Ferringhi tourism belt recently earned an alarming one-star rating on TripAdvisor because of dogs attacking tourists.

Since last year, hoteliers along the beach had reported eight dog attacks on their guests to local authorities, with one attack on Oct 8 resulting in the victim receiving four stitches and two anti-tetanus jabs. The last known attack was on Feb 7.

[...]

Lone Pine Hotel general manager Francois Sigrist called on Penang Island City Council (MBPP) to take swift action.

“We know that many of the dogs that attacked our guests belong to water sports operators who use the dogs to guard their equipment at night,” he said.

On April 27, The Star highlighted three dog attacks.

Obviously nothing has been done.

MBPP Stray Dogs Sub-Committee chairman and city councillor Joseph Ng said stray or feral dogs in Batu Ferringhi would usually disappear into the foothills by day and come out only late at night, making it hard to catch them.

Strays are classified as dogs abandoned by their former owners, while feral canines are born in a pack with no human interaction.

“With any public complaint, we respond in 24 hours. But catching the dogs is not easy,” he said.

From next month, Ng said, MBPP will actively begin a catch-neuter-­release programme to reduce the population of strays on the island.

Penang has 7,500 licensed dogs, but it also has 10,000 stray dogs.

I wonder how can the MBPP catch-neuter-­release programme reduce the population of strays??

It's sheer bull or dog-gone bullshit, because the stray population will REMAIN the SAME.

And of course 'catching' ferocious stray dogs are not easy. The correct action should be to cull them.

The 'release' part has been the most objectionable because the dog menace of feral bites will continue.

The only way to eliminate or drastically reduce and minimise the current danger is to cull the feral-stray dogs.

But with the general and state elections just around the corner the authorities won't take any culling action for fear of those animal lovers, who humane as they may be, are completely unreasonable, impracticable and totally oblivious to the danger of attacks by such dogs against people including and especially elderly citizens and children.

Up to today, the dog lovers are seemingly devoid of any decent plan to contain the canine danger. All they have done have been to protest, threaten the authorities and tok-kok.

Last year, or was it the year before, or even before that, during Penang's attempt to cull an increasing stray-feral dog population, those Dog Lovers threatened the CM of Penang for doing his duty to protect Penangites from the bites and threats of those un-owned dogs running around as if those creatures own Penang.

One lady, I believe a resident from overseas, even fainted from her strenuous efforts to save the Roaming Rovers.

The Dog Lovers defiantly resisted any attempt by the Penang government to cull those strays, but instead promoted neutering the creatures, though as far as I know, they made no comment at all regarding homes or shelters other than to silently buat ta'tahu, meaning to continue letting them run around as teflonized stray dogs a la teflonized stray cows in India.

Sorry I lied. I heard from my Penang mateys that some in fact demanded part of the donated 'bail money' that DAP supporters gave to Lim Guan Eng when he was accused of corruption, presumably to build a Doggie Putrajaya Arabian Nights shelter.

Those who demanded part of LGE's 'bail money' didn't give a sh*t that it had been donated by DAP supporters for a specific purpose, to wit, for LGE's bail and not for their dogs' wail.

Yessirree, in the name of their loving Rover, they demanded some of that 'bail money' but were quite shocked no one outside their group give them any notice.

If Dog Lovers have been silent on how to stop the strays from being strays, they also did not explain how to prevent those still straying strays (but by now hopefully circumcised neutered), say, rummaging at garbage dumps for food, from possibly, nay, more likely, threatening children and elderly citizens passing by or even biting them. Well, those strays have bitten tourists at Batu Ferringhi beach several times.

But damn, it's the trespassing fault of those bloody tourists who were probably disgusting cat-lovers. Sheeesh!

Sadly, the problem of dogs attacking tourists will continue to remain unchanged, until someone in authority in MBPP grow some balls, bite the bullet and start the necessary and long overdue culling of the strays, and tell those dog lovers to f**k off or come up with a confined shelter for their beloved canines.