Community Problem Solving Project: Stray animals in Brunei Darussalam

We have chosen this particular topic to express our deep concern on the horrifying incident

which occurred to an eight year old boy who was badly injured when three stray dogs

attacked him viciously on his way home from school. According to one of the local

newspapers the victim managed to escape alive and tried to fight back but the pack was too

strong. Why do these animals attack? Who are responsible for this misshaped? This is not

the first time this kind of incident has taken place. ‘Last year, a five year old girl was also

badly mauled by three stray dogs on Tutong Beach. She suffered close to 50 puncture

wounds all over her body’. [J, Yusrin]

There were cases where the public have being chased by these stray animals and yet fail to

report it as to them they feel it is unnecessary. Who are they going to report to? The

situation on hand is indeed difficult to comprehend and left many question unanswered.

According to The Brunei Times there had been many complaints from the public and the

media about the lack of enforcement concerning the stray dogs. Previously there was an

agency responsible in dealing with stray animals. However, the agency had been moved to a

different agency and has lost the authorization to continue with its work due to new

government acts and regulations.

Stray dogs are not the only problem faced in Brunei; there are also stray cats, naughty

monkeys and birds which strayed from its migratory path. But for this project, we will focus

on stray dogs as it is one of the most common problems faced by the Brunei society as seen

from the 100 surveys given out.

“Stray dogs are not just dogs that are not licensed, even licensed dogs can be account as

stray dogs when they are out of their home bound” as explained by Pg Hj Nordin PLP. These

poor animals are visible almost everywhere, lurking near the restaurants, supermarkets’, car

parking area, retail stall and etc. Some customers complained they feel uneasy, disgusted

and unsafe when they see dogs near the restaurants, café’s and so on. While some people
found themselves in an unpleasant surprise when they discovered that stray dogs lurking

near restaurants and supermarkets. These customers consider the stray dogs as dangerous

and unsanitary and the surroundings around these stray dogs to be unpleasant. Comments

given by the public are such that one lady said “Well at restaurants, I lose my appetite when

I see stray dogs nearby” and another comment given by another lady “When I go to

supermarkets and see stray dogs wandering in front of the entrance, I feel afraid to enter

the supermarket”.

Another comment given about the seriousness of the stray dog problem found that these

dogs can be a danger to the public especially those who are use to walk to work or go jogging

in the afternoons because one of the person’s cousin had an experience encountering the

“dangerous” stray dogs which almost managed to bite the person’s cousin.

Stray dogs also like to patrol places where there are plenty of rubbish dump sites such as

behind the restaurants and even around private residence. Such wild dogs live on garbage

and their unsanitary lifestyle; make them prone to diseases and infections such as fleas and

rabies. Medical report suggest that if not careful in defining expose to rabies infect in

animal would result in death to human who are non-immune to this disease.

These animals are normally seen during night. They usually roam in packs and they

discontented to home owners and they are sometimes bold to ransack private garbage and

scatter rubbish everywhere thus attracting rats and other pests. There have been reports

that stray dogs have cause accidents along Brunei roads. They are also known to cause

inconvenience to postman delivering the mail in housing estate.

When the public was asked “Are the stray dogs a danger to the public?”, some of the

answers obtained; some people agree that the stray dogs are a danger to the Brunei society

because we do not know what the dogs are thinking and the condition of these stray dogs,

they may carry diseases. One comment made by one the person interviewed ‘They(stray

dogs) are different from the dog inside the house, because these dogs know the people who

trained them unlike the ones astray, where people would think twice before taking in the
stray dogs because they are afraid they do not have any control upon the attitudes of the

stray dogs’

One factor leading to the increase in population of the stray dogs is the uncontrolled

breeding and as well as pet owners who just set them free or abandon them far away from

their residence, leaving them to feed for themselves and trashing public properties and

residential housing belongings also improve the population of the stray dogs.

We made a survey on which one hundred people have answered it, ranging of ages under

twenty until those of age above fifty. On which, ninety-two percent of them have across

stray animals and forty-five percent of those stray animals they come across by was the

stray dogs.

The people surveyed noted that they commonly see the stray animals around the residential

areas (about thirty-nine percent) and on the road (about thirty-six percent). Forty eight

percent of the people surveyed answered yes when asked whether they have been chased or

attacked by any stray animals and sixty nine percent reported they were chased or

attacked by stray dogs. About sixty-eight percent of the people surveyed answered yes

when asked if they had any problems with stray animals around their house property. About

forty one percent complained the problem caused by the stray dogs were the tearing of

plastic bags scattering rubbish around their house compound which can attract pest and

become an eyesore.

For the final question in our survey, we asked if they think that the stray animals is a

serious problem in Brunei, about seventy one percent answered yes, while thirty two percent

answered no and the rest answered not sure.

In conclusion, stray animals are a problem in Brunei. But the most common problems are

caused by the stray dogs. However, we lucky that the problems are not as serious in other

countries such as in Greece, Bangladesh and others where stray animals especially stray

dogs can be seen everywhere.

References:

J, Yusrin. (2006, August 30th). Acting district officer promises action on strays, Borneo Bulletin,
p.1

Abdul Rahim. (2006, September 4th). Stray dogs meeting decides Brunei will get a shelter.
Retrieved September 4, 2006 from: http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn

Consumer guide by Pilihan Network 95.9FM. (2006, September 3rd)

Appendix:

Figure 1: Stray dogs are seen nearby the residential areas.

Figure 2: Rubbish are disturbed and torn apart by the stray dogs near the Supa Save
supermarket in Beribi.
Figure 3: A stray dog is seen near the abandoned houses.

Figure 4: A stray dog is seen behind a restaurant.

INTERVIEW WITH THE ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE BSB MUNICIPAL

Interviewee: Pg Hj Nordin PLP on the 7th of August 2006.

Q: Do you think stray animals are a problem in Brunei?

A: Stray animals are a world wide problem, it’s not just in Brunei and it is also not a recent

problem. It’s just that people do not make reports when these incidents occur.

Q: So what exactly are stray animals? How do you know if they are astray or not?

A: Well, maybe you are not aware but even licensed animals can be considered as stray if

they go far from their home bound.

Q: Well, we’re doing a project about stray dogs, what do you think about such topic?

A: Well stray dogs need to be put away from the public as they are a nuisance, an eyesore to

us and the tourist, act as a pest to almost everybody and it is better if these dogs are

licensed as they are much easier to be handled. For your information, we do have a yearly

budget to overcome these wild animals.

It is a considered a new phenomena when there are interested parties that want to see

these stray animals not be endangered. But the thing is, these people only look at one point

of view, they don’t see the whole picture, when the fact is that this is a global issue not just

locally. About two years ago, these people came to the Municipal and made complaints, so we

decided to listen to their complains. But look at what have happened when we did listen to

their complains, the population of the stray dogs increased and the eight year old boy got

attacked and caught the public’s attention raising the stray dogs issue.

Q: Do you have any statistics on the population of the stray dogs?

A: I’m sorry to inform you that we do not keep any such statistics. This is because we do not

have the expertise to differentiate these dogs, to us these dogs all look the same. Besides,

as they are astray they do not have any proper or permanent place of living. If we start
counting these dogs, we could be counting the same dogs as these stray dogs do act like

nomads.

Q: What actions do you do to the stray dogs that you have captured?

A: The only possible action to be done to these dogs are by putting them to ‘sleep’.

Q: So how do you put these dogs into ‘sleep’?

A: Well we usually use the poison lannate, but it has been banned last year by the UN as a

protection against animal cruelty.

Q: So how does this lannate work?

A: Well, it is quite an effective poison; it can kill a dog within five seconds. This lannate is

injected into a bait on which will be feed to the dogs.

Q: You mentioned, lannate has been banned since last year, so how do you put these stray

dogs to ‘sleep’ nowadays?

A: Well, we try to use other poisons but so far no other poison is as effective as lannate.

The new poison we tried kills the dog after three or four hours after the dogs eat the bait.

This cause problem to us, because the dogs run away after bait given, so their corpse can be

anywhere, i.e. corpse will lie wherever it falls and that can be anywhere such as roads,

residential areas and so on. Also, because the dogs bring the bait with them, when the dog

dies, other animals can get access to the bait such as cats, birds and so on, this is also a

problem to us.

Q: So why not just export these stray dogs as done in Greece?

A: Well that is not an option because we are not sure if there is such market. Besides stray

dogs are usually not healthy due to their wild, unhealthy lifestyle. Another point is, how do

we know these stray dogs will be place in a home shelter rather then chopped into pieces

and put into tins then sell to us.

Q: How about building home shelters for these stray dogs?

A: Well to build these home shelters you need a big budget. Maintenance itself is quite

expensive, you also need to remember there are many stray dogs, we need to feed them,

clean the dogs, clean the place. Besides we do not have a purpose in doing so, because who

are going to do all those stuffs and we are a Muslim country, majority of us can’t even touch

these dogs.

Q: Back to the dogs destroyed, where do you throw their corpse?

A: The corpse we buried it at the dumping site in Sungai Akar. Away from the public’s eye.

Q: So where do most of the complaints made everyday come from?

A: Usually around hospital areas, schools, residential areas, restaurant and private residents

such as flats.

Q: Do you have a hotline we can call?

A: Unfortunately no, because usually when people make a call and when by the time we go to

the place, the dogs have already left. This also happened to the eight year old boy who got

bitten, we couldn’t find the three vicious dogs which attacked him. But you can call straight

to our line here to report.

Q: Who else can we call other than the municipal department to report about these stray

dogs?

A: Actually, you can also report to the police as they are a part of the committee. Another

is that the police have the rights to shoot these dogs but it’s not nice to shoot these dogs in

front of public and there might be a possibility the public could get hurt or shot.

Q: When you mentioned committee, what committee do you mean?

A: Well we have a committee which have existed in 2002. It is called the ‘Mesyuarat

Berbincang Usaha-Usaha untuk Menangani Masalah-Masalah Anjing Liar yang Terdapat di

Negara Brunei Darussalam’ on which the responsibility of the committee are to see that the

act is being implemented and enforce.

Q: Are you saying there is a law for these stray dogs?

A: Yes, we have a law for these it is under Laws of Brunei Dogs Chapter 30 and 60.

Q: May we know who the chairman of this committee is?

A: Well he is the Deputy Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs.

Q: So far what actions have been done by the committee?

A: Well, we haven’t done any actions this week but a meeting was held last week and in BSB

actions will start next week. For the future plan we would like to reduce the population of

stray dogs within three months. Dogs reproduce quite rapidly just like rabbits and rats,

puppies don’t go out until they are three months old, when they are old enough to search for

own food. So for these three months we will see what we can do.

Q: We heard in KB, you can pay ten Brunei dollars to catch each stray dog, is it true?

A: In KB, people do get paid ten Brunei dollars to catch dogs. From what I know, in KB 130

dogs have been destroyed for the past three months.

Q: So why not do the same thing in BSB?

A: Well if we left the catching and destroying of the stray dogs to the public, we are afraid

the poisons will go to the public this can be quite dangerous. Besides in BSB, special gears

are worn by the people responsible in putting the dogs into ‘sleep’. This gear must be worn

when doing the job to prevent contamination because it is possible for the poisons to stay on

clothing or body if protection are not worn. Also for your information, there is a form that

needs to be filled by these people doing this action. This is to take note on how many dogs

have been killed on that day and to keep track on the amount of poison used as these

poisons are present in bottles.