Stray dogs not responsible for Bukit Batok rat infestation: SPCA
PUBLISHED ONDecember 26, 2014 7:21 AM
SINGAPORE - The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has disagreed with members of the public who suggested that stray dogs should be removed from a forested area near Bukit Batok MRT station where rat infestation was recently reported.
SPCA's executive director Corinne Fong said in a statement that it wishes to dispute the notion that the strays are ultimately responsible for the infestation.
She said: "We must recognise that the community dogs have no place to go and, while the SPCA and the other animal welfare groups have tried their best to house them, they have space and resource constraints."
She added that the SPCA does not round up healthy animals from the streets, unless they are injured, ill or distressed, and urged tolerance and empathy for community animals.
She said: "Community animals are inevitably a part of our living environment. The only homes that many of these have known are the streets and housing estates that they have lived in all this while. Removing community animals could create a "vacuum effect", and the void left would be filled by another group sooner or later."
huizhen@sph.com.sg