Hundreds of millions of stray dogs live in urban environments globally, experiencing hunger, disease, injury, and shortened lives. Humane population management approaches outperform culling in both welfare and effectiveness.
Stray dogs experience genuinely poor welfare — chronic hunger, untreated injuries, disease, and violent deaths from culling or traffic. Culling as a management strategy is both cruel and ineffective, as surviving dogs rapidly fill vacated territory. Humane population management through sterilization, vaccination, and community engagement reduces suffering while addressing public health concerns. Individual stray dogs are sentient animals whose daily experience of hunger and injury represents a massive and largely invisible welfare problem.