Overpopulation is one of the root causes of animal mistreatment, especially for stray animals. In many parts of the world, people are still using animal cruelty practices to overcome this problem: poison, kill trap, electrocution, beating-to-death, euthanasia, and also gun shooting.
There are 600 million stray animals worldwide where 200 million stray animals are dogs according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This overpopulation causing traffic accidents, attacking residents, and spreading disease. Nearly 55.000 people die from rabies every year based on data from WHO. People bitten by suspect rabid animals almost 40% of them are children under 15 years of age.
It’s about 6.5 million stray animals enter U.S. animal shelters every year based on data from The American Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Of those, 3.3 million are dogs and 3.2 million are cats. It’s only 24,9% of dogs and 23.4% of cats in shelters are adopted into new homes or reunited with their families. How about the rest of the stray animals? Approximately, 1.5 million shelter animals have euthanized roughly 670.000 dogs and 860.000 cats.
BALI (2018) - There are 500.000 dogs in this paradise island. Most of the dogs in Bali are live on the street. Some of the uncompassionate people usually throw stray animals in the shrubs, markets, landfills, or even worse, highway. While in Dompu, one regency of a province in Indonesia itself has recorded over 9.000 dogs population during the year of 2019. With 4.000 of them are pets and the rest are stray animals. To prevent rabies outbreak, more than 1028 dogs have been put down. A shame.
In 2018, the capital city of Indonesia itself, Jakarta is currently dealing with the problems of cat overpopulation. Refer to Jakarta's Fisheries and Food Security Agency (KPKP) department; there are approximately 30.000 cats around Jakarta. This number is deemed too much.
In Thailand recorded a dog population of 8.5 million, roughly 1 million are street dogs based on World Animal Protection (WAP). India has roughly 30 million stray animals (mutt dog). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that rabies kills about 20.000 people a year in India. That's 36% of rabies deaths worldwide.
While spay and neuter are one of the significant solutions to prevent overpopulation, stray animals and pet adoption program is the only solution to save and give the second chance for stray animals overpopulation.
By adopting a rescue or stray animals, you will get a forever-loyal companion. You will experience the love and the warmth they will bring into your life. There are so many heart touching stories you can find on the Internet about how these rescued or stray animals "thank you" for adopting them.
By adopting animals from the Shelters, trusted animals organizations or other pet adoption center, you save two lives; the animals you adopt and the next animals that going to fill the space your new companion left.
By adopting animals, you are also participating to educate your circle to stop buying animals from breeders and pet stores. This way, you help the community by being the leading example of a solution-practice act that can reduce the distribution of stray animals around, a prevention solution for overpopulation.