Tourist regions across Greece, Turkey, and other Mediterranean countries maintain large stray dog populations that attract both concern and affection from visitors, with approaches to management ranging from lethal control to welfare-positive TNR programs.
Stray dogs in Mediterranean tourist regions present complex welfare situations. Individual dogs that receive regular feeding and attention from tourists may have reasonable welfare, while others in the same population face disease, injury, and malnutrition. Tourist feeding concentrates dogs in areas where conflicts occur, potentially increasing overall welfare harm despite good intentions. Municipal TNR programs combined with vaccination provide the most welfare-positive long-term solution. Visitors who engage with stray dogs have both the potential to benefit individual animals and to complicate broader population management.