The mayor of Magadan, Yuri Grishan, ordered the preparation of amendments to the previously adopted regional law on keeping animals without owners, which will allow the killing of dogs that pose a “public danger.” He wrote about this in his telegram channel.
The Magadan Duma adopted the law “On keeping animals without owners in temporary detention centers” on November 16, 2023. The explanatory note to the document stated that it “gives the right to use killing (euthanasia) of animals for which the owners have not been found.” However, the text of the law itself does not mention the killing of stray animals.
When the media wrote about permission to kill animals in the Magadan region, press secretary of the regional governor Alexander Vyatkin said: “The law makes no mention of euthanasia for animals. The document, among other things, provides for the possibility of clarifying the procedure for keeping seriously ill and aggressive dogs.”
Now, on behalf of the mayor of Magadan, the amendments on the killing of stray animals are being specified. According to Grishan, “in less than two months of 2024, the municipality received more than 100 requests from residents related to uncontrolled walking of pets and the sight of ownerless dogs on the city streets.”
In Magadan, “a high alert regime has been in place in connection with this problem for several years,” the mayor added. He referred to data from the local Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology, according to which in January “18 city residents were injured by animals.”
In July, Vladimir Putin allowed regional authorities to decide for themselves how to deal with stray animals. As a result, laws on killing animals that did not find owners were adopted in Buryatia, Altai, the Astrakhan region, Chukotka and other regions. In some places the animals were given a month to find a home, in others only 10 days.
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