17/05/2026
It’s Time for Sri Lanka to Choose Science and Welfare Over Failed Shelter Concepts
This year, the national budget has allocated 100+ million rupees to start dog shelters and burial services under urban councils.
But let’s be honest shelters are NOT the solution for a country like Sri Lanka.
🇱🇰 We have an estimated 2.5 million dogs, and history has already shown us what happens when we try to confine them in shelters:
• Dogs becoming sick, injured, and severely stressed
• Overcrowding within months
• Neglect, starvation, and disease outbreaks
• Euthanasia as the only “management” option
Shelters may sound compassionate on paper.
In reality, they become dumping grounds for suffering.
So why is the government repeating a mistake that has already failed multiple times in Sri Lanka?
The Real Solution Sri Lanka Needs
The National Humane Dog Population Control and Rabies Eradication Program which ran annually from 2008 to 2023 kept the population manageable and protected communities.
It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.
Then in 2024, it suddenly stopped.
And today, we are seeing the consequences: more puppies on the streets, more dog bites, more rabies risk, and more suffering.
200 million rupees were already allocated for rabies eradication .Yet only a small fraction has been used.
Instead, millions are being pushed into building shelters ,a system that has never worked in this country.
At a time of national economic crisis, Sri Lanka cannot afford to waste money on ideas already proven ineffective.
Where Are Our Experts in This National Crisis?
Sri Lanka has a Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Peradeniya ,the only government veterinary faculty.
Every year, around 80 veterinarians graduate, completing one of the most expensive and resource-intensive degree programs in the state university system.
So we must ask:
Is the government truly using the expertise of these highly trained veterinarians to solve our biggest national issues dog population management and rabies control?
Our country is still struggling with:
• Unmanaged and rapidly growing dog populations
• Gaps in sterilization and vaccination coverage
• Overcrowded, inhumane government-run shelters
• Public health risk from rabies
• Massive suffering of community animals
These young veterinarians are trained with public funds.
They are not just clinicians ,they are public health experts, population management specialists, and essential partners in humane, science-based solutions.
Yet their knowledge is not being meaningfully integrated into national planning.
It’s Time to Demand Better
Sri Lanka has the talent.
Sri Lanka has the training.
What we lack is strategic utilization and political will.
Let’s demand that the government :
• Consults veterinary experts with real experience in humane population control
• Restarts the national sterilization + vaccination program
• Uses allocated funds responsibly and transparently
• Stops investing in shelters that will only lead to more suffering
• Protects both animals and public health
If we truly care about animal welfare, rabies prevention, and community safety, we must act with sense, science, and compassion not sentiment.
