The recent extermination of stray dogs in Kaspiysk, a town in Daghestan, with the support of local authorities there has caused outrage among animal rights activists.
Photos killed dogs in the centre of the town appeared online at the end of May and spread fast among Daghestani Instagram and Facebook users. People reported in the comments that the animals were killed in plain sight of passersby.
‘They’ve repeatedly killed dogs and left corpses there right in front of children’, a witness, Angela Usmanova from Kaspiysk, told OC Media. She watched as Abakarov Magomedgardzhi, an acquaintance, killed two dogs in the centre of the town.
‘They pay ₽400 ($7) for each dog and their dirty salary depends of how many bullets they spare. He shot four bullets at one dog. Children were feeding these dogs, they raised the dog and she wasn’t dangerous’, Angela remarks.
Raisa Chumak cleans the central square in the town every day. She begins work early in the morning. She has witnessed dogs being killed for several days in row.
‘I begged him not to shoot them in my presence. I was shocked. A dog was near the statue of Lenin. He shot it, she rolled down from there. He didn’t take the body. Slaughterer! In this month, they are not afraid of sin’, the old woman says angrily, concerned that Muslims are murdering animals during Ramadan.
Animal activists in Kaspiysk have repeatedly appealed to the head of Municipal Unitary Enterprise Clean City, Shamil Bagamayev requesting a resolution to the situation with stray dogs in a less cruel manner. However, Bagamayev responded that he received the order to kill the dogs from the town’s administration.
Viktoria Shevtsova, head of the Centre for the Protection of Animals — Ecolife, came to Kaspiysk to understand the situation and tried to get information from the administration of Kaspiysk, but no one would meet her. Later, she managed to reach Bagamayev by phone, who at first denied that the killing of stray dogs was happening, because the reward for catching or shooting stray dogs had not yet been announced.
However, during the phone call, heard by OC Media, Bagamayev repeatedly made it clear that he supports the killing of dogs, even thoroughbreds, justifying this with the ‘security of people’.
‘If even a single resident of Kaspiysk calls me and tells me that there is a pitbull terrier walking around the city (and they are characterised as aggressive) I don’t care, I will come and I will shoot the dog and I won’t look at a single law at all’, he told Shevtsova.
‘As for the mongrels, I tell you this is a lie, no one shoots them’, he added.
Animal rights activists say that it’s been repeatedly proven that shooting dogs cannot solve the problems of dog attacks, and that the only way is to catch them and work with the animals.
‘Sterilisation, vaccination of the animal, and its return to its former habitat will reduce the aggression. They lose the instinct for reproduction and they no longer run in packs’, says Viktor Shevtsova.
The animal activists appealed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kaspiysk requesting administrative and criminal cases be brought against Magomedgardzh Abakarov — a man who according to the witnesses is shooting the dogs.
According to the Russian law, if the violent treatment of animals results in their death, a person can be fined by up to ₽80,000 ($1,400) or six months to one year in jail.
The activists plan to launch petition and collect signatures against the killing of stray dogs in Kaspiysk. They also hope that it will be possible to have a similar animal shelter to that which recently appeared in Makhachkala.
In Azerbaijan, animal rights activists have been protesting the illegal shooting of dogs by municipal authorities, but are doing so in the face of legal challenges and police brutality.
‘We often see blood on the streets,’ says Kamran Mammadli, a 27-year-old vegan activist.
Mammadli has been engaged in animal rights activism since the movement began to gain momentum in Azerbaijan, around four years ago. He tells OC Media that state violence against stray dogs played a driving role in the mo
Animal rights activists staged a protest in front of the Toplan Centre for Stray Dogs in Baku. They have claimed that rather than taking care of the stray dogs the centre kills them.
The 8 July protest was attended by roughly two dozen protesters, who held up signs and chanted ‘don’t kill dogs’. Shortly after the demonstration began, police broke up the protest and detained five participants.
Nijat Ismayilov, one of the detainees, told OC Media that police took the activists to a police sta
Hundreds of seals listed in Russia’s Red Book of endangered species have been washing up dead on the Caspian coast in the Daghestan in what activists warn could amount to an environmental disaster.
On Wednesday, ecologists found the remains of 125 Caspian seals on the shores near the capital, Makhachkala — a record for a single day. Ecologists and scientists studying the Caspian Sea have said that around 17–30 corpses are washing up per day.
Footage of beaches littered with dead animals rel
Police in Baku have broken up a small demonstration by animal rights activists angered by the killing of stray dogs.
Activists reported that six people were detained during the protest on Monday, with police not reporting the reasons for the detentions.
One of the protesters, Sanay Yaghmur, told OC Media that there were around 15 people at the demonstration and that police intervened as soon as it began. She said that one of the organisers, Nijat Ismayilov, was detained in his home by police
stry of Internal Affairs in Kaspiysk requesting administrative and criminal cases be brought against Magomedgardzh Abakarov — a man who according to the witnesses is shooting the dogs. 
