You're reading: New animal shelter to be built in Kyiv

An animal shelter for stray dogs and cats will be built near Kyiv ahead of Euro 2012 European football championship that Ukraine co-hosts with Poland. The construction, which will cost the state Hr 6 million, is to be finished before next summer.

“The shelter will be able to accommodate up to 1,500 stray animals,” according to Tetyana Tarnavska, head of Kyiv-based SOS animal rights group. The new shelter is to be build near Pyrogovo village in suburban Kyiv, near the current SOS shelter.

Apart from small, donation-based private shelters, Kyiv has one municipal shelter located in Borodyanka, 80 kilometers from the capital. The city spends Hr 9 million on shelter’s upkeep annually .

City authorities plan to build more shelters in Kyiv in attempt to solve the problem of thousands of animals on the streets. They have also promised to help small private shelters with paying their water and electivity bills. The city has had a stray dog problem for many years, partly because of the lack of an effective sterilization program and a reluctance by shelters to euthanize unclaimed pets.

Tarnavska, however, last year put the number of strays at “no more than 15,000,” while others estimated the number is three times more. Whatever the number, the city doesn’t have enough shelters and has not been effective in removing stray and sometimes dangerous dogs from the city’s streets.

More than 3,000 people were bitten by stray animals in Kyiv in 2010.