CHENNAI: The Blue Cross, which is one of the oldest animal welfare shelters in the country, was caught off guard on Thursday when carcasses of dozens of dogs and cats, mostly young ones, were found dumped in sacks on its premises in Chennai.
The sacks were uncovered by a four-member committee, comprising officials from the Animal Husbandry Department and the Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board.
This comes in the wake of activist S Muralidharan complaining to the Animal Welfare Board of India regarding alleged mismanagement at the Blue Cross Chennai.
The committee, in its preliminary inspection report, observed that a total of 18 puppies, two adult dogs and 14 kittens were found dead inside the treatment section. The officials said there were no proper records of treatment maintained at the Blue Cross facility.
"Dead puppies were dumped in a sack and kept in the same room that housed sick puppies. Big rats were found in the kennels of the sick puppies. The rats were eating the dogs' food, which had become stale," a committee member told TNIE.
Blue Cross has an in-house incinerator and the crematorium records indicate roughly 45–50 deaths on average every day at the shelter.
Further, more than a dozen dogs are euthanized daily.
Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board member Shruti Vinodh Raj, who was part of the inspection committee, told TNIE, "it was appalling. This was the worst among the 65 shelters that we inspected off-late in Tamil Nadu. Food was stale, no proper records maintained, and doctors were absent at the time of our visit."
A detailed report will be submitted by the committee to the state government for further action.
When contacted, Blue Cross chairman Chinni Krishna told TNIE, "the carcasses were mostly puppies, which people pick up from the streets and drop them at our facility. Without mother's milk, they won't survive. We are swamped by such animals. What can we do? If we refuse to take them, they die on the road."
He agreed that they should improve on record keeping and will work on it. On allegations of serving stale food, Chinni said it was the extra food that the committee found.
"Our shelter maintains the highest of standards and no wrongdoing takes place here," he said, adding that the Blue Cross had not yet received any notice following the inspection.
It may be noted that the Blue Cross was one of the animal welfare organisations that received Rs 45 lakh as a grant under the Vallalar Palluyir Kaapagangal Scheme from the state government.
Sources said Rs 22 lakh has been released under the scheme so far.