Perak wants basic SOP for handling strays at all local authorities

IPOH: The Perak government hopes to have in place a basic standard operating procedure (SOP) for handling stray dog issues by the end of this year, says Datuk Nolee Ashilin Mohd Radzi.

The state Housing, Local Government and Tourism Committee chairman said they were currently fine-tuning the basic procedures to be streamlined and used at all district local authorities.

"Among the things we want to improve on are licensing and its conditions, catching methods and the next course of action to be taken.

"An issue we are facing is that the cases brought up at the respective district councils are different according to the locality," she said during a press conference to announce the Perak Virtual Run 2020 at Lost World of Tambun here Thursday (July 16).

"At Ipoh City Council, there are not many issues because they are working closely with some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) compared to other councils," she said.

"We are still trying to find effective ways to handle the matter, and I will bring the recommendations to streamline the procedures up to the state executive council meeting for deliberation," she added.

It was reported that the Ipoh High Court had last week granted an injunction to stop the Manjung Municipal Council from shooting stray dogs.

This was after an NGO, Malaysian Animal Welfare Association, spotted a circular by the municipal council on a stray dog shooting exercise from July 1-4 and July 6-11.

Nolee Ashilin had said then that the exercise would not be carried out and the state would discuss the issues with the local and district councils.

She also said the state was now looking at two main methods in handling the stray dogs – trap, neuter and release (TNR) and putting aggressive animals to sleep.

"TNR advocates the best way to handle the issue, and we are looking into it.

"There are some related issues such as placement of dogs, manpower, cost and needing more veterinary doctors, so there are a lot of things to consider," she said.

Separately, Nolee said reports from Tourism Perak showed that the number of tourists coming into the state was promising.

"The numbers in terms of bookings and their presence was better than we expected.

"We had expected a slow recovery but we are not doing too badly," she said.

"It seems tourists are educated on how to handle themselves in public, and they have the confidence to even visit public places like theme parks with their families," she added.