Companion Animal Care Articles used with permission from All-Creatures.org

As COP31 kicks off in Antalya, Fleur Dawes reports that Türkiye has officially removed all dogs from the country’s streets. For many creatures, this has meant displacement, neglect, abuse, and death. Celebrities and activists continue to speak out against the injustice.

Peter Egan Asks COP31 Delegates Where Türkiye's Street Dogs Have Gone
From Fleur Dawes, IDA In Defense of Animals, idausa.org
November 2026

Two months before Antalya hosts the COP31 climate summit, rescuers uncovered dogs buried in a mass grave at the city's municipal animal facility. One dog still wore the ear tag showing they had been neutered and vaccinated. Now Downton Abbey actor Peter Egan is asking summit delegates: Where are the dogs?

In a new video released by In Defense of Animals, Egan challenges the world leaders and officials gathering in Antalya from Nov. 9 to 20. "You cannot preach salvation for the Earth while slaughtering its most vulnerable and innocent beings," he says.

It is not the only grave in the host city. Video filmed by rescuers at the Aksu municipal animal shelter, also in Antalya, shows black bags dumped in a pit in an open field, surrounded by discarded blue gloves. Rescuers say the bags hold the bodies of dogs.

On Oct. 21, 2026, Türkiye's interior minister announced that every street dog had been rounded up: "We have rounded them all up, 100 percent." Since a 2024 law ordered dogs off the streets, rescuers have documented starvation, beatings, and mass burials in shelters across the country.

At a municipal shelter in Bozüyük, in western Türkiye, footage filmed last winter shows multiple dogs standing in a muddy pen. Dogs there were starving in the open, with nothing in their troughs. Some have every rib showing.

What Happens to the Dogs?

For two decades, Türkiye's Animal Protection Law said street dogs should be caught, neutered, vaccinated, and returned to their neighborhoods. Many still wear the ear tags that prove it. In 2024, a new law replaced that system with mass removal to shelters, though Türkiye had room for only a fraction of its street dogs.

What followed is documented in photos and video gathered by Turkish rescuers and shared with In Defense of Animals:

In Ankara, more than half of the 59,000 dogs taken into shelters died within 18 months.

Dogs have been beaten. At a municipal shelter in Ankara, security camera footage dated Sept. 29, 2026, shows a worker standing over a dog on the ground with a pole.

In Erzincan, drone footage shows dogs loaded into a truck and driven to a freshly dug pit.

People who try to help are paying a price too. Rescuers have been harassed and detained, and in Istanbul, the governor has banned "uncontrolled feeding" of street dogs in public, so feeding a hungry dog can now bring a fine.

"Those who dare to shield them are threatened. Harassed. Silenced," Egan says. "Compassion has been criminalized."

In Izmir on Oct. 17, police escorted municipal workers as they removed nearly 200 dogs cared for by Ege University students. Police used pepper spray on students who tried to protect the dogs, and protesters marched to Bornova Municipality demanding to know where the dogs had been taken.

On Sunday, Nov. 8, the day before COP31 opens, animal advocates will march through Antalya calling for justice and the right to life.

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: November 9, 2026
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