The San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion has eu­thanised 447 dogs since 2016 in its at­tempt to curb the pres­ence of strays.

The fig­ure comes in re­sponse to a free­dom of in­for­ma­tion re­quest to the cor­po­ra­tion by at­tor­ney Rhea Khan on be­half of her client, an­i­mal ac­tivist Marisa Ram­nath.

The re­quest was prompt­ed by An­i­mals Alive Vice Pres­i­dent, Jow­elle De Souza’s claim that “since the start of the year, over 7,000 pets have been killed by the cor­po­ra­tion.”

“Our client is cu­ri­ous as to the au­then­tic­i­ty of this state­ment and

is seek­ing your as­sis­tance in ob­tain­ing the sta­t­ics in re­gard to same,” the let­ter ac­com­pa­ny­ing the re­quest from Khan said.

In her re­quest sub­mit­ted on Au­gust 30, Ram­nath sought “the to­tal num­ber of dogs and an­i­mals eu­thanised by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion over the last five years to date or any re­lat­ed in­for­ma­tion avail­able.”

Re­spond­ing to the re­quest was the cor­po­ra­tion’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, In­dar­jit Singh, pro­vid­ing the fol­low­ing break­down of eu­thani­sa­tions: 91 be­tween 2016 and 2017, 130 be­tween 2017 and 2018, 76 be­tween 2018 and 2019, 59 be­tween 2019 and 2020, 54 be­tween 2020 and 2021, and 37 be­tween 2021 and 2022.

“To­tal num­ber of eu­thanised dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2016 - 2022 is four hun­dred and forty-sev­en (447). We ask that you please be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly,” he end­ed.

De Souza’s claim came in Au­gust in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia as she said le­gal ac­tion will be filed against the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, for eu­thanis­ing pet dogs with­in two hours of cap­ture with­out al­low­ing the own­ers enough time to claim them.