In December, 2018 the city authorities officially announced that they were going to stop extermination of stray animals in the capital. Yerevan community undertook the responsibility of a new, progressive method and created its own centre for animals’ neutralization. Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan visited the new building of the SNCO “Centre of Neutralization of Stray Animals” and familiarized himself with the conditions provided there.

The premises of the new municipal clinic are equipped with operating rooms, cages for pre-operative and post-operative care. A diagnostic laboratory provided with necessary equipment will be opened here soon.

 “It’s only the first stage of our activity in this direction within the frames of which we gather stray dogs in Yerevan, sterilize them and set free. We do it to stop their reproduction so, eventually their number will decrease. Those residents who have pets will become the direct participants of the second stage. Each resident who has a pet at home or in the yard will have to register it. After the registration the person in charge is obliged to do all necessary vaccinations and to sterilize the dog if it’s female”, noted Hayk Marutyan. Sometimes pets are abandoned and appear next to stray animals. This problem can be regulated by law, however the law isn’t applied, says the Mayor.

The Mayor noted that people often abandon their pets, leave them homeless and in his opinion it is inhumane, violent and unacceptable. People must take the responsibility of those creatures they keep. Because of the fact that not all owners register their pets it becomes impossible to keep the process under control. If all pet owners register their pets the chips will contain full information about the owner and this way it will become possible to apply the law and bring the irresponsible owner to responsibility. Currently, the law requires pet owners to charge AMD 5000 per year for the registration. However the city authorities initiate to make the process free of charge in case everyone registers their pet.
According to the Mayor, in near future the facilities of the clinic will be improved, another operating room will be provided. Currently, 20-25 dogs are sterilized a day, this number can be increased up to 30, however the facilities are to be increased and another building is to be built next to this one.

During the first term of 2020 1300 dogs were sterilized. During the same period of the previous year this number was 700. Since 2019 up today, 4300 dogs have been sterilized.