Thousands of stray animals are found roaming in the streets of Yerevan, posing a threat to its inhabitants. The authorities are addressing this problem catching and killing stray dogs.

However, animal rights groups have recently become very active encouraging authorities to adopt more humane methods.

In their letter to Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan, activists urged city officials to develop a program to sterilize dogs instead of destroying them, Armenia Today reports.

 “Unless we solve this problem as soon as possible, the situation will deteriorate. The population of dogs not only increases but they become more aggressive. The number of attacks of stray dogs on the residents increased considerably over the recent five years,” said Armenian representative of British “Pro Paws” organization on animal rights protection Nare Aramyan.

The website “Unigraph-X” which is to implement measures to control animal populations reports “stray animals are sterilized” in Yerevan. But the activists claim the company was mainly killing animals.