Volunteers looking after stray dogs at Kalimpong, Darjeeling, in West Bengal

From the archive record

In 1995 Christine and Jeremy Townend founded Kalimpong Animal Shelter, which was built on the outskirts of the town. They were deeply distressed by the condition of the stray dogs in Kalimpong and Darjeeling, former British Hill Stations in the foothills of the Himalayas in West Bengal. There were no animal shelters, and dogs were travelling the streets in gangs, hungry, suffering from mange, with wounds inflicted by boiling water, or a blow from the kukuri (Nepalese knife), and with injuries from accidents. In both towns the dogs were being regularly poisoned with strychnine by the municipalities in the mistaken belief that this would control the spread of rabies.. However, after the local population of dogs was killed, remaining dogs rapidly multiplied to fill the empty biological niche