- By Laura Kvigstad, Auckland Council reporter, funded by New Zealand on Air
Auckland Council’s latest Animal Management Report reveals a sharp rise in dog attacks and welfare concerns, prompting calls for Government intervention.
At the council’s regulatory and safety committee meeting on October 8, the annual report was presented to the committee.
It shows a rise in dog-related incidents including a 19 per cent increase in roaming complaints, a 14 per cent increase in dog attacks on people and a 19 per cent increase in attacks on other animals.
Welfare-related complaints saw an 80 per cent increase on the previous year.
The council’s Animal Management manager, Elly Waitoa, said the increase in incidents was time consuming for staff, which meant less time could be put toward prevention efforts.
“Welfare-related complaints shot up significantly around the 600 mark last year so we are up over 1000.
“Most of those are related to dogs not being fed, cared for, sheltered. It just goes to show there’s a decline in people’s ability in some cases to care for their dogs.”
Waitoa said only 50 per cent of dogs that came through shelters were registered and known to the council.
“We estimate there are probably around another 100,000 dogs across Auckland that we don’t know about. It’s a quite significant issue.”
Cr Daniel Newman said the unknown dog population was spiralling out of control.
“We have almost lost control of this issue now. We just don’t have a sense of the unknown population out there which is exploding.”
Waitoa said it was time to get the Government involved to help tackle the problem.
“If you look at this huge dog population in Auckland, it would be silly to think there aren’t 10 bitches having a litter of pups today.
“Unless we are desexing 100 dogs a day the population’s going to keep growing.”
Houkura member Edward Ashby said he supported the call for Government action and asked what could be done to increase desexing of dogs.
“Every additional dog multiplies all of the issues. Bad dog ownership, dog bites, all of it. It’s simple arithmetic so how to turn the tap off is desexing.
“My view is you have to have a licence to drive the car so you should probably have a licence to own a dog, but that’s probably an unpopular view.”
Waitoa said cost was a major barrier and changing mindsets around desexing would play an important role in increasing desexing.
“There is also the vet shortage. Great South Road Vets, where some people would go because it’s a lot cheaper than most vets, they were down to three from 15 vets.
“They are absolutely run off their feet.”
The committee agreed to lobby the Government to seek financial, legislative and policy support to address Auckland’s ongoing animal management challenges.
