Dogs are Chennaiites, NOT ‘Strays’— PETA India’s New Billboard Campaign Reminds Citizens It’s Their City Too, Following Recent Supreme Court Round-Up Order

For Immediate Release:

19 November 2025

Contact:

Anushka Yadav; [email protected]

Sanskriti Bansore; [email protected]

Chennai – Following the recent, highly contested Supreme Court order for community dogs to be rounded up from railway stations, universities and other places, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals India (PETA India) has erected a billboard in the city with an impassioned plea to protect these dogs and treat them with kindness — because, after all, they are born-and-raised Chennaiites, too.

The billboard is located near Anna Arch, NSK Nagar, Arumbakkam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600106. Similar billboards about dogs being locals have been erected in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, and Mumbai.

“Community dogs are naturally intelligent and sensitive, and they are just trying to survive in the city, just as we are. They deserve kindness as much as our human neighbours do,” says PETA India volunteer Niranjan Shanmuganathan. “PETA India urges the public to watch out for canine members of our society and to report any cruelty to them to PETA India and the police or another animal protection NGO. PETA India also urges community members to put colourful bandanas around the necks of dogs they care for to protect them from being picked up.”

PETA India has warned that the Supreme Court directive to round up millions of cows from highways and dogs from everywhere from bus shelters to college campuses—to be imprisoned in imaginary shelters—is nothing short of a recipe for cruelty and chaos.

PETA India notes India has an estimated 52.5 million dogs living on the streets, 8 million already languishing in overcrowded shelters awaiting good homes, and around 5 million stray cattle—largely victims of the dairy industry, which abandons male calves and “spent” cows once their milk production declines. PETA India advises that the only humane and practical ways to address these issues, grounded in science and reality, are the nationwide implementation of the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, and adopting a vegan (dairy-free vegetarian) lifestyle. PETA India also urges authorities to shut down pet shops and breeders who are not legally registered and whose business model encourages impulse buying and abandonment, and to encourage adoption from the city’s overcrowded animal shelters.

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow PETA India on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

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