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Combined reports
Feral dogs killed one woman, attacked and injured another, and partially devoured a drunk who had died of hypothermia by the side of the road in Vladivostok this week. In the wake of the attacks, Acting Mayor Yury Kopylov ordered the extermination of strays in city limits and created a team of riflemen, led by one of his deputies, to do the job. The attacks began before dawn on Jan. 7. A 50-year-old woman identified by medical authorities as Zinaida P. was passing apartment block No. 231 on Kalininskaya Street when a pack of stray dogs attacked her. Oleg Vyatkin, a resident of the apartment building, said, "The barking and screaming woke me up. I looked out of the window and saw that stray dogs were tearing a woman apart. The were pulling her toward a store." When police and ambulance arrived, the woman was already dead. She was lying in her underwear and boots in a puddle of blood. Pieces of her fur coat and other clothes were scattered around. The woman's head, neck, limbs, and torso were lacerated. Nikolai Fentisov, officer on duty with the Emergency Situations Ministry, said it was an extreme situation. "Unfortunately, all the stations for catching and destroying stray animals are closed," he said. "I think this problem should be solved immediately." On Jan. 11, a pack of strays attacked a woman in Second River area, but her injuries were not deadly, and she was taken to the hospital. Her condition was unknown. Finally, at about 8 a.m. Jan. 13, an unidentified man of about 40 years of age was found on a slope in the same area of Kalininskaya Street area, his body was covered with lacerations and one leg eaten down to the bone. However, the doctors say he was drunk and died of hypothermia before the dogs attacked his corpse. The problem of strays did not appear overnight. Some 2,747 people were bitten by animals in 1998 (including nips from rats, squirrels and even monkeys), 845 were attacked by dogs. And a woman was killed by her own Rottweiler last year when it attacked her as she fed it. When ex-mayor Viktor Cherepkov stopped financing the extermination of strays in 1996, doctors warned the authorities about the danger of rabies, leptosperosis and 38 other canine-borne diseases. However, nothing has been done. Valentina Voronok, deputy chief physician with the city epidemiological center, said she is outraged that the city authorities didn't react on the center's reports and appeals. "I think the mayor's office bears full responsibility for what had happened," she said. Although the environmental prosecutors might protest, as an emergency measure, the police have begun exterminating strays at night, she said. "I am a supporter of a humane attitude toward animals," she said. "But if our state can't take care of them, we should protect people first and kill the animals." Lyudmila Kostyrina, an instructor with the Primorye Club of Animal Lovers, said the problem has been exacerbated by the grown number of people who own fighting breeds such as Staffordshire terriers, known as pit bulls. Many people who get rid of such animals simply release them on the streets. The dogs, trained for savagery in the ring, roam the city. Often they become leaders of dog packs and urge mongrels on to aggressive behavior, she said. Inna Zhidkova, director of Zooinform, a service that helps find lost pets and fights for animals rights, said dogs aren't to be blamed for their instinctive behavior. "People themselves are to be blamed for the attacks," Zhidkova said. "They provoked the aggression. Maybe there was a dog with rabies in the pack from Kalininskaya Street. But it is an unlawful action to conduct a massive shooting of dogs on city's territory [in respons]." From The Vladivostok, Novosti and the Vladivostok News The proliferation of strays in the city has long been a danger. For a look at a story from last year's Vladivostok News, click here. Note: this will take you out of the current issue. To return, click the "back" button on your browser until you see this page.
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