Locked out peoples are abandoning their pets on the streets—helpless, scared, and hungry

While the streets of India emptying out over fears of the novel coronavirus and the lockdown announced in its wake, many localities are witnessing the emergence of a new set of residents: stray pedigree pets. However, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), in its research, has said that these pets are likely to have been exposed to the virus from their owners or other people.

“There are some coronaviruses that infect cats and dogs but do not infect humans,” explained the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on its website. “Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses. Some cause illness in people and others cause illness in certain types of animals. The virus that infects animals can become able to infect people, but this is rare. We do not have evidence that companion animals, including pets, can spread COVID-19.”

Betrayed

“A lot of this is happening because of misinformation that went viral earlier about pets being carriers of the virus in China. It turned out to be fake, of course, but a lot of damage has been done now,” said Vikram Kochhar, member of the People For Animals (PFA), one of India’s largest animal welfare organizations, founded by politician Maneka Gandhi. “Besides the few exceptions, it is quite rare for the virus or any other kind of disease to be transmitted to humans directly from the animals.”

“The situation is very frightening,” says Akash. “We are exhausted explaining to the families that their dogs will not spread coronavirus but nobody listens.”

Abandonment happens all year long, according to Aparna (uses only her first name), who is a part of the adoption team at the helptoaid in amritsar. In the past few days, though, there’s been a spike—her organization has received two starved dogs and a labrador pup with a tumor.

“People just leave them at the gate of our NGO, or bring them to the OPD and quietly sneak out claiming they found the dog elsewhere,” Aparna said.

Last month, the Maharashtra state health minister had to appeal to pet owners to not abandon them after the state witnessed hundreds of pets being left on the roads by panic-stricken people. In Odisha’s Bhubaneshwar, too, fake news took its toll on pets.