Stray animals in the city have no place to go since the Karnataka Veterinary and Fisheries Sciences University (KVAFSU)-CUPA animal shelter on university campus in Hebbal was closed on October 31.
However, people continue to bring animals to the shelter. Many abandoned, aged and injured animals have died in the past one week without timely treatment. The KVAFSU-CUPA centre is the only Bangalore-based animal shelter of the CUPA.
“Most don’t know that the centre has been shutdown. People come and leave animals on the street outside,” said Anil, a labourer, who has worked in the shelter for more than 10 years. He said 20 puppies have been left on the street outside the shelter.
Since there are no ambulances operating to fetch helpless animals, people don’t know where to take these animals and those that need treatment.
“We found three snakes in front of the shelter. After seeing the door locked, someone had just left them outside,” Anil said, adding menace due to snakes and stray animals is likely increase now because people will not know where to take them or where to report if they see one.
Karuna Animal Shelter, adjacent to CUPA, expressed its inability to admit more animals as it has only 150 beds and all are full. A board outside the centre read that there is no space in the shelter. Meanwhile, sources said that the land lease issues have forced the shelter to stop its activities.
They said the KVAFSU had granted free land to the trust in 1997-98 for a period of 15 years. Now that the lease period is over, the shelter has been shut down. Suparna Baksi-Ganguly, president, CUPA, clarified that CUPA does not have immediate plans to resume service due to lack of space.
“There is a lot of unpleasantness because we are being forced to open despite the expiry of the lease. There is a potential to expand in Bangalore,” she said, adding that Whitefield and J P Nagar are prospective locations. CUPA has appealed to the KVAFSU asking to extend the lease for 10-15 years. While most of the animals have been shifted to other centres run by the trust, 30 permanent shelter dogs are yet to be assigned a new home. Sixteen dogs are currently housed at Karuna. The shelter housed about 200 animals and provided treatment to dogs, cats, injured birds, ponies and calves. At least 380 animals were treated here every month. Every day, at least 30 animals were admitted to the shelter.
The trust runs BBMP-CUPA Animal Birth Control Centre in Koramangala and CUPA Animal Care Clinic at Thimmaiah Garden in R T Nagar and also had a centre in Kengeri.