Pristina Drops Street Dog Cull

Hunters will no longer be employed by Pristina municipality to hunt down and shoot street dogs, the town hall has announced.

The news came after a campaign by the pressure group Animal Friends of Kosovo, which has called for the practice to be dropped.

The municipality said it will now use the Trap Neuter and Release, TNR, technique instead.
Animal Friends of Kosovo said they were “delighted and congratulated the municipality of Pristina on their decision to end the culling of street dogs and adopt a TNR programme”.   

“This clearly shows that the municipality is prepared to deal with a difficult problem and deal with it in a modern, viable and humane way,” the group said in a statement.  

“We are available to assist and support the municipality in any way that we can with our expertise and experience and would welcome the opportunity to meet with them to discuss this further. We look forward to the tender issue, which we will be bidding for.”

The municipality said it would now issue a tender for a company to carry out the neutering campaign.

In a statement it said: “After examining carefully the European standards for protection and treatment of animals, and in accordance with law for the treatment of animals, Pristina Municipality has decided to announce a tender for castration and sterilisation of stray dogs and also has suspended the contract with the utility company Horticulture the physical elimination of stray dogs.”

Pristina also called on other municipalities to follow in its footsteps.