YEREVAN (ArmeniaNow) — Animal rights activists are sounding an alarm that Unigraph-X, an organization in charge of dealing with stray animals, fails to do its work properly.
The Dingo Team NGO, which has been dealing with stray animals since 2011, says that about 40 dogs recently set free by Unigraph-X are not sterilized and are in poor health.
Yerevan’s Mayor Taron Margaryan also referred to the concerns, instructing the organization to tighten controls and provide the public with a detailed account of its activities.
Ovsanna Hovsepyan, the founder of the Dingo Team, said: “After our protests Unigraph-X began to create the impression that it does sterilization. However, we managed to catch, with difficulty, seven of the first 40 dogs that were set free. We held a public medical inspection in the presence of journalists that showed that the animals actually were not sterilized: moreover one of them was pregnant,” she says.
“The bellies of the dogs were sewn with non-absorbable sutures that would cause problems later. All wounds were in festering condition. On puppies, there were very tight collars, which would begin to choke them in one or two months.”
Before 2015, the organization annually got about $500,000 from the state budget for sterilization of dogs. This year, about $250,000 were allocated from the city budget to Unigraph-X, which has been dealing with the issues of stray animals since 2009.
