Forty-three animals, including cats and dogs, were found dead this morning in the Gebze district of Kocaeli, outside the district municipality’s animal rehabilitation center.
According to a witness on the scene, workers from the Gebze Municipality claimed they were acting under a recently enacted law authorizing the culling of stray dogs. "They said they were killing the animals in accordance with the new law," the activist said, adding that the animals were killed using a ketamine-based drug called Keta-Control.
Nimet Özdemir, an MP from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), told bianet that a prosecutor had been called to the scene to investigate how the animals were killed, but hours passed without their arrival. “In the meantime, evidence was being tampered with,” she said.
The law in question, passed in July, grants municipalities the authority to kill certain animals under specific conditions. These conditions include stray dogs that pose a danger to human or animal health, exhibit uncontrollable aggressive behavior, or suffer from untreatable diseases. The provision applies to only dogs and not cats.
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Additionally, all the killed animals were in healthy condition according to volunteers, which constitutes another violation of the law provisions.
“We feed these animals every Wednesday, and when we went this week, many were missing. We searched the area and found the animals had been killed and placed in black garbage bags,” said a volunteer.
Dozens of cats and dogs poisoned to death in Turkey’s Kocaeli, local authorities blamed
— bianet English (@bianet_eng) October 11, 2024
Thirty dogs and 13 cats were found dead outside the Gebze District Municipality’s animal rehabilitation center.
Volunteers report that municipal workers said they acted upon a recently… pic.twitter.com/oqNnpjrmJK
‘They have been killing animals for a long time’
Semra Çelikkaya, chair of the Kocaeli Nature and Animal Friends Association (KOHAYDER), confirmed that the animals were found dead near the municipal facility and were healthy and regularly fed by volunteers. "The municipality has been killing animals for a long time, but today we caught them in the act," she said.
Çelikkaya described the scene when volunteers discovered some animals still alive inside the bags: “We opened the bags and found some animals still clinging to life, while others were in their final moments. The anesthetic drugs they used caused the animals to die slowly and painfully. They didn’t even bother disposing of the drugs properly.”
Çelikkaya vowed to take further action to shut down the shelter. "We will do everything we can to close this shelter, and we won’t stop until all shelters across Turkey are shut down. These people are not capable of managing this. Dozens of animals are killed in front of our eyes every day. We will push for the dismissal of the responsible veterinarians," she concluded.
When contacted by bianet by phone, Gebze Municipality declined to comment on the issue, stating that they were not aware of the killings. (TY/VK)
