Tbilisi Mayor announces opening of homeless animal population management centre in capital

Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze on Wednesday announced the opening of a new, “modern-standard” centre for management of homeless animal populations, with the facility set to offer round-the-clock services to the city.

Kaladze said the centre, built on the territory of a municipal animal shelter in the country’s capital, would enable transfer of more animals to the shelter for sterilisation and castration, which he said had been “recognised globally as the only effective and humane method” for controlling street animal numbers.

As you know, this direction is a serious challenge for the capital, so we have set a goal to solve this problem and are taking appropriate steps in a modern, civilised manner”, he said.

The Mayor noted the centre was equipped with individual enclosures, a laboratory, an operating block, a postoperative area and “other necessary infrastructure”.

He added the facility was isolated from the existing shelter building to ensure that animals were “only transferred for sterilisation and castration procedures”, which he said was “very important for effectiveness of disease management”.