Our Romanian friend Flavia Mindrut first wrote this in September 2013, days after Romania’s Constitutional Court cleared the mass euthanasia of stray dogs. Twelve years on, the killing continues. We’ve updated the facts. The argument, sadly, hasn’t needed updating.
Following the tragic death of a 4-year-old boy attacked by stray dogs in a Bucharest park, Romania’s parliament passed Law 258/2013, giving authorities the right to capture and euthanize any unclaimed stray after 14 working days. The Constitutional Court cleared it. The mass media called it justice. The dogs died.
That was 2013.
In 2024, Romanian county authorities captured 3,871 dogs and killed 3,286 of them: an 85% kill rate that generated over RON 2.7 million in revenues for the private organizations contracted to do it. Romania still has an estimated 500,000 to 600,000 stray dogs roaming its streets. The math isn’t complicated. Twelve years of systematic killing, and the population hasn’t moved.
The economic case against culling was there from the beginning. Between 2001 and 2007, Bucharest spent nearly €9 million killing 144,000 dogs, at €62 per animal. Sterilization costs €20 to 25 per dog. Killing isn’t just cruel. It’s more expensive, and it doesn’t work. Dogs don’t vanish from a city because you kill a batch. They reproduce. New animals fill the territorial vacuums left by the dead. The same streets see the same packs a year later.
Not the feral beast the media projects them to be.
What actually works: Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return. Sofia, Bulgaria used this approach to bring its stray dog population down from over 11,000 in 2007 to 3,600 by 2018, without a single mass cull. In Romania itself, FOUR PAWS has been running CNVR programs in Constanta since 2021 and Ilfov county since 2022, working alongside local communities to manage populations humanely. The results are exactly what animal welfare organizations have argued for decades: treat the source, not the symptom.
No country for me?
Public funds earmarked for spay-neuter programs were never implemented. The money went elsewhere. Romania receives EU funds for animal welfare, and in June 2025, eleven Members of the European Parliament filed a formal written question to the Commission (E-002593/2025) raising exactly this: EU money is being channeled to private organizations whose entire business model is built on killing animals. In February 2026, a European Citizens’ Initiative was registered calling on the EU to enforce stray animal protections across member states.
The world is watching. Romania is still killing.
Adopt from a shelter, don’t buy pets.
The logic of mass euthanasia has never been about solving the problem. It has been about appearing to solve it fast enough for the next election cycle, while keeping the contractors paid. The dogs, who cannot vote, cannot lobby, and cannot flee a shelter after 14 working days, keep absorbing the cost of that optics exercise.
As Flavia wrote in 2013: “It is not only irrational and ineffective, it is brutal, inhumane.”
The only thing that has changed since then is the body count.
Romania still has her Draculas.
Sources: European Parliament Question E-002593/2025 (June 2025); FOUR PAWS International, Stray Animal Care in Romania (2024); EU Citizens’ Initiative, February 2026; Sofia CNVR data via World Animal Protection.
I wish there were more people like Flavia in Bucharest. The poor dogs have no say on their fate…:(
Very very Sad!!! God help us
Whatever is happening is not good. Heartless people 🙁
Pretty stupid post. You make some comparation that are very lame.
Come to Romania to Bucharest try to walk on the streets by foot and comment after.
Sometimes you find yourself between 20 dogs that are starting to bark and attack you. What you do in those situations ?
I got biten like 3 times in past 6 years and never saw the dogs, just after they bite me.
And i remember the years of childhood i had to detour alot the trip from school to home because of the dogs… Few streets i never walked because of that. Even now at 28 years, when i get on those streets i remember and i have a fear the dogs are still there.
So the city is not the woods! The dogs dont belong here !
And with so many dogs on Bucharest if you sterilize them will take like 10 years for the dogs to dissapear.
Save the chikens, cows and pigs too…. what is the difference ? A pig for example is more smart then a dog, but few ppl know this, and you still eat it…
“Come to Romania to Bucharest try to walk on the streets by foot and comment after.”
Dear Mr. Alex, this blog post was written by Ms. Flavia, a girl from Bucharest, Romania. So I guess this does present fairy true picture of the situation.
And as for city not being the woods, kindly get your lessons in the wild, wolves belong to the woods, not dogs.
Killing street dogs is not effective, because it does not address the root of the problem. Indeed, historically, culling dogs has proven completely ineffective. And who let these stray dogs out in the streets in masses – it’s careless owners like you who don’t sterilize their dogs, who abandon the pets…
As a Huffpost article reads, For more than 20 years, Romanian dogs’ lives have been ended in the most painful ways – shot, poisoned, hung, burnt or placed into small kennels to die of thirst and hunger – but the problem of stray dogs remains. Perhaps you need to rethink the kill strategy. How about using a fraction of EU funds for animal welfare?
If this is the picture you wish to paint for your country, it’s your call. But believe you me, in the end life comes full circle. Be wary of the woof!
The methods of killing are cheaper and uicker for humans but often lead to slow painful deth for the ogs. My heart breaks or Romania and her good and caring citizens. I can only hope sanity takes control again soon and someone ours a stop to these horrendous actions.
Well said, Flavia! <3 Thank you for spreading information about Romania's inhumane stand against animals, the ruthless killing of strays, and the total misuse of finances that could've been spent on necessary things! Shame on the Romanian authorities!
its so sad, how inhuman can we be. This nature belongs to all animals, not just us humans.
So we have no right to terminate a life, why don’t they think of shelter, vaccinations & castration to control population? They are more human at least 🙁
I readily accept that the situation in Romania is less than ideal but I do feel that funds have been misused which were designated for humanely resolving the stay dog crisis. Therefore the blame lies solely with politicians as they could have addressed and solved this issue ten times over. It’s criminal that the animal who is not responsible must be the one to suffer the consequences. When all is said and done what all of this will ultimately demonstrate is a measure of a country’s humanity. There are cruel people committing cruel deeds in all societies but when it occurs on a mass scale there must be something fundamentally wrong. Also it is somewhat impossible to compare dogs with other animals as they only exist because of humans for the purpose of working and companionship. Dogs are the the only creatures that choose to be with humans despite their own needs. We have created them, therefore we are responsible for them. We must ask ourselves what kind of human am I? Do I care for and protect those that are vulnerable or can I inflict pain and cruelty on another. If Romania believes this is the right course of action then be proud and promote your methods of animal welfare. If you choose to hide what you are doing from the rest of the civilised world it speaks volumes about how a nation feels about what it has chosen to engage in, therefore no excused as ignorance.
I am disgusted at the barbaric methods Romania is using to KILL these dogs it is HORRIFIC to see dogs brutally beaten , poisoned, run over, stabbed, tortured and recently i have heard of many DOGS BEING RAPED !!?? FOR GODS SAKE WHAT IS GOING ON IN THAT COUNTRY ??? i so glad that the WORLD IS WATCHING YOU ROMANIA AND THERE WILL BE LONG TERM REPCUSSIONS FOR THESE ATROCITIES !! what they are doing and the corruption involved ..there have been thousands of people signing petitions and demonstrating all over the world about this ….If as Ghandi said “the greatness of a country is measured in the way it treats its animals” then god help you Romania you are in the gutter as a nation !!!
Here is a video tribute to stray dogs all over the world including Romania. This problem sickens my heart continually and has for a long time. We really have to stop the breeding, get at the root, stop the insanity, it is too horrible for words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZdnFOZK7Mw