Human Lives First: A Balanced Appeal to Celebrity Stray Dog Activists

To celebrities like  Janhvi   Kapoor  Varun Dhawan and now Himanshi Khurana fighting to save stray dogs: After the Supreme Court ordered the culling of dangerous strays because they pose a serious threat to human lives, why are you opposing it so strongly?My view is clear — we must find a practical middle path that secures both human lives and animal lives.I stand by the humanist principle you support, but I have an honest question: What about the millions of animals killed every day for food — fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, and even insects? Don’t they have a right to life as well? I’m not turning this into a religious debate. I’m talking about all animals.The usual counter-argument is that food animals are bred specifically for consumption. But if that’s true, then why does whale farming exist in some countries? And why do hunters still travel to the Arctic to hunt whales?If we truly value lives, we cannot be selective — only protecting cute pet-like strays while ignoring food animals. Ideally, all lives should matter. But I know this won’t happen because it is a massive multi-million dollar industry, and many people want to eat non-vegetarian food. I’m not arguing against that reality.However, the scale of the stray dog issue in India cannot be ignored. We have an estimated 60-62 million stray dogs — the highest in the world. In 2024 alone, there were nearly 37 lakh dog bite cases and many rabies deaths. Children and the poor suffer the most.The existing Animal Birth Control (ABC) program has largely failed. Sterilization and vaccination rates remain too low, and simply feeding strays and releasing them back only worsens the problem.It is also hard to ignore the selective outrage. The same celebrities who passionately defend strays often stay silent when thousands of cows, buffaloes, chickens, or wild animals like elephants and leopards are killed in human-animal conflict. Their concern seems limited to photogenic strays that help them trend on social media.If tomorrow a stray dog kills a human, will you simply say “I’m sorry” and accept that the dangerous dog must be put down? What about the permanent damage and trauma inflicted on the victim’s family?In a society where human rights are often ignored, how can we expect real concern for animal rights?I genuinely cannot understand this inconsistency: How can one support the killing of animals for food and sport, yet fiercely oppose the killing of animals that directly endanger human lives?