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From dog shelters to pigeon bans, Indian courts spark debate over health, compassion, and culture in city governance.
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The aftermath of two recent unprecedented high-judiciary interventions has laid bare the fault lines of animal governance in India’s cities. On 30 July 2025, the Bombay High Court ratified the ban on feeding pigeons enforced by the municipal corporation at Mumbai’s storied Kabutarkhanas (pigeon feeding centres), now deemed a public health risk. On 11 August 2025, the Supreme Court ordered authorities in the Delhi-National Capital Region (Delhi-NCR) to accommodate all stray dogs from public spaces in shelters within eight weeks. It warned of stern action in cases of non-compliance.
These moves signal a determined push to safeguard public health and safety in cities. However, they also call for a deeper estimation of India’s legal provisions, weak implementation and enforcement capacity, and the crucial need to navigate carefully the delicate cultural and religious sentiments and the civilisational ethics of compassion for animals.
The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act of 1960 established the Animal Welfare Board of India, empowered state governments to implement rules consistent with the PCA, and specified offences for cruelty. Yet, since 1965, rules under the PCA have essentially focused only on draught and pack animals—including bullocks, buffaloes, horses, and camels. Only in 2001 did India adopt the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, which classified dogs into pets and street dogs, and mandated their sterilisation and immunisation.
These rules introduced the ‘catch-neuter-vaccinate-return’ (CNVR) approach, placing primary responsibility on urban local bodies (ULBs) to establish dog squads to round up street dogs and release them back to their original areas after tagging, sterilisation, and vaccination. Municipal statutes complemented this by assigning dog population management and rabies control to local governments. The revised Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules in 2023 continued in tandem with the CNVR approach.
The order reflects the apex court’s frustration at governance failures but does not undermine animal welfare principles.
However, the Supreme Court overturned the ‘release’ provision in Delhi-NCR, citing an “extremely grim” situation. It called the ABC rule requiring their release “absurd,” directed authorities to “forget the rules for now,” and ordered the capture and permanent housing of street dogs in shelters. The order reflects the apex court’s frustration at governance failures but does not undermine animal welfare principles.
By contrast, the Bombay High Court has upheld the ban imposed by the local body on feeding at kabutarkhanas, enabling prosecution of violators. Furthermore, it also constituted a 12-member expert panel comprising state health officers, medical experts, veterinarians, and animal welfare board members to assess the impact of pigeons on human health and examine whether regulated feeding can be allowed without compromising public health. The judiciary has thus acknowledged cultural and religious sentiments, but only if they do not endanger public health.
While the matters are still sub judice, the interim court orders have evoked mixed reactions, with several animal welfare organisations expressing concerns about their implementation. City-level ABC drives are chronically underfunded, and shelter capacity is either grossly inadequate or virtually nonexistent. The laws and regulations, which task the ULBs with sterilisation and vaccination, are silent on dedicated finances to build adequate veterinary infrastructure and shelters. While Delhi’s local government has identified/scouted sites, creating shelters at scale would require expeditious investments from the state government. Moreover, even though public health impact stemming from large pigeon congregations and droppings is well-documented, with children, older adults, and the immunocompromised particularly vulnerable, Indian laws and regulations do not specify ways to deter feeding.
Bird feeding and caring for stray dogs as acts of compassion among many Jains and Hindus further complicate this issue. Given the lack of public consultations and awareness campaigns, several citizens’ groups view enforcement as coercive, leading to public outcry and bold acts of non-compliance. The backlash to the court’s orders in both Delhi-NCR and Mumbai highlights how measures introduced in the public interest and for welfare are difficult to enforce without social licence and a parallel strengthening of municipal capacity.
Bird feeding and caring for stray dogs as acts of compassion among many Jains and Hindus further complicate this issue.
Consequently, the regulatory vacuum has triggered hasty reactions, especially regarding dogs. In 2012, a member of the Punjab legislative assembly moved a resolution seeking to export stray dogs to Mizoram, Nagaland or China “for whatever they do to them”. In 2015, local bodies in Kerala proposed a similar strategy to remove stray dogs. On the other hand, Bengaluru has taken an opposite view. Arguing that well-fed dogs are less aggressive and less prone to attacking humans, the municipal corporation recently launched an INR 28.8 million annual programme to feed chicken and rice to the city’s stray dogs across eight zones in 125 demarcated feeding sites.
Pigeons came to be perceived as ‘disease carriers’ across the United States (US) during the 1960s, prompting mass killings of these ‘rats with wings’. London banned pigeon feeding at Trafalgar Square in 2003, imposing a £500 fine on violators/defaulters. Venice followed suit, imposing a citywide ban in 2008. Several municipalities in Barcelona feed corn laced with contraceptives to induce infertility, although studies revealed ‘limited impact’ on pigeon populations unless this method is combined with feeding and nest control. Pigeon-human relations took an extreme turn when Limburg an der Lahn, in West Germany’s state of Hesse, voted to exterminate all the pigeons. More recently, Hong Kong’s no-feeding law, introduced on 1 August 2024 with fines up to HK$100,000 and jail terms, saw a decline of 11 percent in pigeon population during the first quarter of FY2024-25 compared to the preceding three months.
History is replete with examples of well-intentioned campaigns backfiring disastrously. Although not specifically ‘anti-pigeon’, one such instance was China’s Four Pests Campaign in the 1960s, which mobilised citizens to eradicate rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows to boost hygiene and safeguard agricultural output. This initiative had significant unintended consequences, as it also affected other bird species besides sparrows. Consequently, pests such as locusts, previously preyed upon by these avian species, multiplied uncontrollably, devastating farm output and contributing to the Great Chinese Famine, which claimed the lives of up to 75 million people.
History is replete with examples of well-intentioned campaigns backfiring disastrously.
In a rare example of coordination, targeted funding, and community engagement over 14 years, Bhutan achieved a 100 percent sterilisation and vaccination of strays with international support. In Türkiye, on the other hand, the apex constitutional court recently upheld a new law allowing the culling of over 4 million stray dogs. Culling is also a usual practice in Pakistan, with reports indicating the slaughter of over 50,000 stray dogs annually on official orders. However, Italy’s legislative Decree No. 281/1991 bans the culling of stray dogs and reinforces cruelty to animals as a crime. Morocco has also adopted an approach similar to India’s ABC. Unlike India, it has scaled up its “sterilise, vaccinate, and release stray dogs” programme with investments of US$23 million over the past five years.
Cities must adopt explicit byelaws prohibiting pigeon feeding in ecologically sensitive, high-risk public places, define penalties, and mandate deterrence through netting, anti-roosting building design and supervised hawking. As clear, well-defined laws combined with consistent communications lead to better outcomes than sporadic crackdowns, they must pair each intervention with sustained people’s engagement and awareness campaigns. Simultaneously, cities must:
For dogs, states must urgently address the challenges that animal welfare centres face by investing in trained dog squads, veterinary, and shelter infrastructure with proper ventilation and disease-control standards, as well as long-term staffing and earmarked operating budgets.
Any court- or state-mandated practice must respect the cultural and religious sentiments. Maharashtra is already considering regulated feeding zones away from dense neighbourhoods. Redirecting a portion of cash donations to temples and gaushalas (cowsheds) toward veterinary infrastructure, shelters, and vaccination-sterilisation campaigns can address the societal spirit of compassion. Transparent, ethical operations of shelters can drive uptake. Educating priests, maulvis, and clergy about the harms and persuading them to discourage feeding in high footfall areas can strengthen deterrence.
For dogs, states must urgently address the challenges that animal welfare centres face by investing in trained dog squads, veterinary, and shelter infrastructure with proper ventilation and disease-control standards, as well as long-term staffing and earmarked operating budgets.
All ULBs must publish monthly updates on sterilisation, vaccination, bite incidence, shelter occupancy, mortality, and adoption rates of dogs. Likewise, they must report pigeon nests, droppings load, and bird-caused respiratory conditions.
India needs a principled middle path—one that fosters public health and makes safety non-negotiable, while prioritising humane treatment grounded in legal and ethical norms and sensitive to cultural sentiments. Delhi-NCR now has the opportunity to build municipal capacity and ensure public safety. Mumbai can also set an example for other cities to overcome the pigeon conflict by catalysing evidence-based management with design, deterrence, and data.
Dhaval Desai is a Senior Fellow and Vice President at the Observer Research Foundation.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Dhaval is Senior Fellow and Vice President at Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. His spectrum of work covers diverse topics ranging from urban renewal to international ...
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