Romania rounds up street dogs before Nato summit
Romania has launched a crackdown on stray dogs and wild foxes amid fears they may bite guests at its Nato summit which began today.
Dog-catchers in Bucharest have been picking up as many of the city’s estimated 30,000 strays as possible.
Some fear the animals could jump in front of leaders’ motorcades and cause crashes.
Strays are usually plentiful, but today, it was hard to find a dog that was not on a leash.
Simona Panaitescu, director of Bucharest’s Administration for the Monitoring of Animals, said the strays had been squeezed into overcrowded municipal animal shelters. After the summit, she said, they will be released back onto the streets.
She could not say how many animals had been taken off the streets or how many remained at large.
Bucharest’s dog infestation turned deadly in 2006, when a Japanese citizen died after a stray attacked him and severed his femoral artery.
Despite numerous less serious attacks, Romania recently passed laws preventing authorities from killing strays. Previous crackdowns prompted animal lovers to complain of cruelty, and celebrities, including French actress Brigitte Bardot, rushed to the dogs’ defence.
Stray dogs are not the only creatures that have Romanian authorities worried.
At the Black Sea resort of Neptun, where President George Bush met Romanian President Traian Basescu, professional hunters scoured nearby forests teeming with foxes.
A local mayor, Traian Cristea, said the foxes often venture onto the roads where the Bush convoy passed, and the hunters were trying to frighten the animals deeper into the woods.
