Special Report: Turkey Stray Dog Dilemma | Pt. 1

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Turkey’s Stray Dog ‘Massacre Law’ Has Divided Its Country

About The Episode

For centuries, stray dogs in Turkey have lived alongside humans in communities who care for and feed them. The country has even instituted progressive animal rights laws to protect healthy street dogs and criminalizes those who may hurt these animals with jail time.

This longstanding tradition of community street dogs dates back to at least the Ottoman Empire, but this social contract has been broken many times. Nonetheless, the street dogs in Turkey and this unique cultural dynamic have endured against the odds and pressures of Westernization.

A new law passed in July 2024 aims to rid stray dogs from the streets for good. The intention is for the law is said to protect human citizens from deadly dog attacks, and government municipalities are charged to remove all stray dogs by 2028. Most street dogs under this plan will also likely be euthanized. That’s because there is an insufficient amount of shelter space, for example, with an estimated four million strays and only room for 100,000 of them in existing shelters. Even at those facilities in place, the conditions are widely reported to be inadequate and already full. The overall lack of a practical implementation and humane approach for this has led to animal welfare groups dubbing it the “massacre law.”

Turkey as a whole is split on having stray dogs in general. In recent years, overcrowded shelters in municipalities were not able to meet increased demand for spaying and neutering. Instead, street dogs in the city centers were captured and dumped in suburban, rural periphery areas. This disorienting experience away from their familiar home habits led some displaced dogs to join packs for survival, and there have been a few aggressive dog incidents that have caused car accidents or harmed humans. But the news and social media have sensationalized these very small number incidents to make the sitauioon seem like a much bigger problem than it is.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose government is in charge and passed this law, said, “We have a stray dog problem that does not exist in any developed country.” Many in Turkey argue that the stray dogs themselves are not a problem, but instead the issue to address is specifically the overpopulation. To otherwise deny the unique dog-human relationship in Istanbul and other parts of the country is to deny the history of Turkey, seemingly in an attempt to Westernize instead.

In this episode of Dog Save The People, we discuss background regarding the history of dogs in Turkey until now and what challenges the new massacre law is presenting. In telling the story, we hear from guests who are from the country and others who have spent notable time there, to get a better understanding from those with experience on the ground and with the local strays.

About The Guests

Nazlan Ertan is a journalist and communication specialist, who has worked in Turkey and abroad since 1990 for both local and international publications. This included more recently serving as culture editor for Al-Monitor. She has also worked as a media and political consultant.

Lisanne Hillen is a Dutch citizen who spent much of her life in the UK before deciding to move to Turkey in 2018 to live with her husband in his homeland. When making the move, Lisanne knew she wanted to help the local dogs. She founded Melez Dog Rescue, where she cares for dogs prepares them for international adoptions - with around 300 dogs successfully matched to date.

Elizabeth Lo is an award-winning non-fiction filmmaker, who attended NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Stanford University. She’s originally from Hong Kong and is currently based in Los Angeles. As a director, cinematographer, and editor, she is interested in finding new aesthetic ways of exploring the boundaries between species, class, and unequal states of personhood. Her debut feature film was Stray, a documentary looking at the life of several street dogs in Istanbul.

Ahmet Senpolat is an animal rights lawyer and is the founder of HAYTAP, the first animal rights federation in Turkey, which now has around 2,500 animal rescue and rights associations as members. He was instrumental in getting free range dogs classified as beings and protected from harm with criminal time in jail for violators. He and other members at HAYTAP have been looking at humane alternatives to solve the dog over population issue.

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