By Patricia Negron

My beautiful home, Puerto Rico, is overrun by thousands of stray cats and dogs that are constantly multiplying. Cats and Dogs International, a U.S.-based non-profit, wants to travel to the island to help spay and neuter animals, but the Veterinary Board of Puerto Rico is ignoring all attempts at communication, even though the help is free and necessary.

As the proud “mother” of Lila, a beautiful rescue dog who was abused before I adopted her, I find the board’s inactivity offensive. If, as veterinarians, their stomachs don’t turned inside out every time they see a stray dog or cat, then they’re clearly not working in the right workforce.

A 2010 documentary called “100,000,” named for the number of stray dogs, explored the problem. Sadly, many volunteers currently estimate the number closer to 250,000.

Neva Kaya, a 27-year-old Puerto Rican who lives in California and works with Cats and Dogs International, created a petition on change.org to the Veterinary Board to bring attention to the situation in hopes the conversation will get started and pressure the Veterinary Board to allow the organization to help.

“We organize high-volume spay and neuter clinics in Mexico and the Caribbean,” Kaya told me in an e-mail. “We have been going to Mexico since 2008, and since we started our veterinarians have sterilized more than 10,000 animals.”

The board controls who can practice veterinary medicine on the island, and currently bans veterinarians who aren’t licensed from practicing. They have the power to make an exception, according to Law 194 for the Practice of Veterinary Medicine of Puerto Rico, which regulates veterinary practices on the island. But Kaya said the board has ignored all of Cats and Dogs International’s attempts at communication.

There are other organizations on the island, including four no-kill sanctuaries which operate through time, money, food, and medicine donations, and usually offer spaying and neutering operations at low costs. However, the island’s shelters cannot afford to have no-kill policies. They have limited space, they are constantly receiving strays, and have too few people adopting.

The situation is definitely hard to control. According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a stray female dog and her offspring can multiply to become 67,000 dogs in six years, making a strong case for spaying and neutering animals. The attitude on the island against castrating male dogs definitely contributes to the problem. People see it as the unnecessary removal of the dog’s manhood and prefer to focus on female dogs.

A lot of stray dogs are actually pure-breed, abandoned by their families. Puerto Rico has one of the best animal protection laws in the world, Law 154, the Animal Protection and Welfare Act. However, there is no money to enforce it, and many times animal abusers are not caught unless the crimes are reported.

“The Law 154 for the welfare and protection of animals, requires that food, water, hygiene and veterinary care is not just for pets but for all living things, with or without an owner,” explained Nurilis Ojeda, a friend of mine from high school who is finishing her master’s degrees in animal science and dairy production at Louisiana State University. “Each town in Puerto Rico must take responsibility for addressing the problems of stray animals, providing spay and neuter plans.”

The law was enacted after a tragic event in 2007 in which a private company, Animal Control Solutions, was employed by the town of Barceloneta to capture all pets and stray animals in public housing projects, and euthanize them. According to multiple news sources, tenants were threatened with eviction if they didn’t comply because the public housing projects had a no-pet policy.

The dogs and cats were drugged, put in bags and thrown off a bridge in a tragedy I will never forget. According to Primera Hora, a leading newspaper on the island, the town’s mayor tried to remove himself from the situation, saying the government wasn’t involved in this decision.

Although the company’s president and two employees were charged and tried, they were found not guilty, according to multiple news sources. No one was found guilty of killing those pets, and many Puerto Ricans will always remember it.

Although abandoning pets is prohibited by this law, it still happens. I always see new pictures posted by a temporary caretaker on social media showing pets looking for a new home. Most of these animals are house-trained and used to people, proof of their abandonment.

The board can’t just keep ignoring the situation, and they shouldn’t have all the power if the problem affects the island as a whole. According to Teresa Escandón, a former president of the Puerto Rico Hotel and Tourism Association, Puerto Rico lost about $15 million in tourism from 1998 to 2000 from tourists who canceled vacations or decided they wouldn’t return because of the stray animals. She said the island lost even more tourism revenue after the 2007 tragedy.

This is why the petition is addressed not only to the Veterinary Board and its president, but also to Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro García Padilla, Ingrid Rivera Rocafort, the executive director the government-owned Puerto Rico Tourism Company, and Clarisa Jimenez, the current president of PRHTA.

Something more needs to be done. It’s clear that the Veterinary Board needs to allow licensed U.S. nonprofits to help us. It’s also clear that many pet-owners need to be educated about male dog castration. Without pet-owners understanding the consequences of not spaying and neutering their pets, it might be impossible to control the problem.