Editor     2014年2月16日 23:28

SOCHI, Russia - Thousands of stray dogs have been living amid the mud and rubble of Olympic construction sites, roaming the streets and snowy mountainsides, and begging for scraps of food.

But as the games drew near, authorities have turned to a company to catch and kill the animals so they don't bother Sochi's new visitors _ or even wander into an Olympic event.

Alexei Sorokin, owner of the extermination company Basya Services, told ABC News that thousands of stray dogs wandering the streets of Sochi are posing a threat to athletes, hurting the city’s image, and that some of the strays are “biting children.”

According the local animal rights workers, the abundance of strays is the result of pets being abandoned by families whose houses were demolished to make way for Olympic venues, reports The New York Times.

Animal activist Dina Filippova is among the opponents of the latest dog-culling plan, saying city authorities are using the Olympics as an excuse to cover an ongoing practice.

"We should understand that it is done not only before the Olympics but constantly," she told the AP in an interview in downtown Sochi, where she was trying to find homes for seven puppies she recently rescued near the Olympic Park. "Two killers from that company work for the city to kill 300 dogs a month."

"It is not humane," she added. "There is a humane way of solving the problem of stray dogs which is used in Europe and the United States and even in some countries of the former Soviet Union _ that is a mass sterilization which eventually leads to no stray dogs on the streets."

Sorokin's company operates in the Krasnodar region, which includes Sochi and the neighboring area. He refused to say how many dogs they kill a year, calling it a "commercial secret."

Humane Society International sent a letter asking President Vladimir Putin to stop the culling.

And a Scottish member of Parliament said the killing ”stains the snow of Sochi with blood.” Struan Stevenson said that while Putin cuddled a leopard in a show of environmental concern this week, he should have used some of the billions spent on the Olympics on animal shelters.

According to the New York Times, the charity Volnoe Delo, which is backed by Russian billionaire Oleg V. Deripaska, is using a “dog rescue” golf cart to scour Olympics facilities and the area around venues for stray animals.

Authorities pledged to give up the practice and build animal shelters for strays instead after backlash from the Humane Society International and other animal-rights groups. The dogs that are rounded up will be brought to a local shelter located on a hill in the outskirts of town. The makeshift PovoDog shelter already houses 80 animals, including about a dozen puppies.

Reference Source:China Daily,2014/02/04;o.canada.com,2014/02/06.

Translator: Da Qian