Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz stopped livestock shipments to seven nations. Islamabad High Court rules that indiscriminately killing street dogs contradicts Islamic law.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan––The 2026 Haj season, meaning the pilgrimage-to-Mecca season observed by the Islamic faithful, ended on May 30-31 with both good and bad news for animals.
The bad news, as ever, was the Eid-al-Adha slaughter of cows, buffaloes, goats, sheep, and camels for the ritual feast that ends the Haj, often crudely conducted by heads of households who rarely if ever kill animals at any other time, but believe that in following tradition, they are following Islamic law.
The good news included anticipated drastic reductions in the slaughter volume due to the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by both the U.S. and Iran.
Blockade
The blockade has since March 26, 2026 almost completely stopped livestock shipping to Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the east coast of Saudi Arabia, according to global livestock trade monitor Katrina Love, of Franklin, Tasmania, Australia.
Better news was a May 22, 2026 verdict against indiscriminately killing street dogs, issued in Pakistan by Islamabad High Court Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro.
The verdict has immediate binding effect only on public policy in Islamabad, but is expected to be influential in reducing the street dog death toll throughout the Islamic world.
While that effect will be seen over weeks, months, and years, what the world saw on May 30-31, depending on which side of the International Date Line observers stood, was the slaughter of an estimated 9.1 animals in Bangladesh, 7.4 million in Pakistan, at least 35,500 in Egypt, and 14,500 in Qatar.
To put those numbers in perspective, U.S. slaughterhouses each and every day kill an average of 20 to 26 million chickens, four million pigs, 1.7 million sheep, 1.4 million goats, 1.4 million turkeys, and 846,000 to 900,000 cattle: more than the entire Islamic world kills for any of the three major Islamic holidays.
Drones sank livestock transporter
The 2026 Eid-al-Adha slaughter toll, but not the death toll, was reportedly reduced by about 4,000 on May 13, 2026 when the Indian-flagged wooden dhow MSV Haji Ali, transporting sheep and goats from Somaliland to the United Arab Emirates, apparently tried to run the Strait of Hormuz blockade and was hit by drones.
Whether the drones were Iranian or American remains unclear. Fourteen crew members reportedly escaped alive to Oman, but the animal cargo all died when the dhow burned, capsized, and sank.
“The voyage from Berbera to Sharjah is way too long for a small wooden dhow,” commented Katrina Love. “A vessel that size would normally be used for inter-island transport, not transporting across the Arabian Sea, and they reportedly had turned off their automatic identification system, which would have made them a suspicious vessel.
“Another vessel,” the Masturah, apparently crossed the Strait of Hormuz without incident on May 11, 2026,” Love reported, “having sailed from Djibouti to Salalah, Oman, despite Salalah being targeted by drone strikes on port oil facilities by Iran.
The Masturah, Love said, “was presumed empty, after unloading animals from Djibouti/Ethiopia, in Salalah, Oman.”
“There is no ‘through’ the Persian Gulf”
Emphasized Love, “The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has only affected vessels wanting to enter the Persian Gulf. There is no ‘through’ the Persian Gulf and out the other side––you enter via the Strait of Hormuz, and you turn around and exit via the Strait of Hormuz.
“Vessels are being prevented from entering and exiting. There are no alternative/longer routes by sea,” Love explained, “to the livestock shipping ports serving seven Persian Gulf nations.”
A dhow hauling about 400 sheep, 150 cattle, and seven crew members from Berbera reportedly sank with all hands and all animals on March 14, 2026 in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, near Ras al-Ara in Lahj province, Yemen.
That sinking , however, was apparently due to rough weather, having nothing to do with Middle East warfare.
Pack hunting tourism
Meanwhile in Pakistan, dogs have been in the news for a variety of reasons throughout the first half of 2026.
Telegraph political columnist Charles Moore on February 15, 2026 spotlighted the growth of pack hunting tourism promoted by the Peshawar Vale Hunt, catering to affluent British sadists who are frustrated by enforcement of the Hunting Act 2004.
The Hunting Act 2004 prohibited “The pursuit of the inedible by the unspeakable,” as Oscar Wilde [1854-1900] described traditional British fox hunting with hounds.
The Peshawar Vale Hunt, Moore explained, “was founded by British Raj officers in 1860, to hunt jackals. It survived the Partition of India, protected by the Pakistani army. In the 1960s, however, it fizzled out,” only to be revived as a money-making enterprise in 2019 by one Faiysal Ali Khan.
Dog sledder from the Pakistan desert
Six weeks after that, adventure athlete and physicist Samar Khan, 36, renewed her status as a Pakistani national heroine by completing the Fjällräven Polar 2026 dog sledding trek, a 180-mile scaled-down group expedition across northern Sweden descended from a race modeled after the Iditarod Trail race in Alaska, sponsored by Fjällräven winter clothing manufactuer Åke Nordin.
The race, initiated in 1997, became a non-competitive group trek in 2012.
Dog attack controversy
The biggest dog-related news in Pakistan during spring 2026, however, was the release of dog attack data showing that 243,299 residents of Punjab had suffered dog bites during 2025, obtained by the Young Doctors Association through a petition to the Lahore High Court; widely broadcast video showing police shooting street dogs in Johar, contrary to the Punjab Animal (Dogs) Birth Control Policy 2021; and an allegation by barrister Maqsooma Zahra Bohari that shooting dogs in the streets amounts to an “act of terrorism,” spreading public panic.
Historically, unpopular governments worldwide have often resorted to shooting dogs in as a thinly disguised warning against public protest.
But if that was anyone’s intent in Pakistan, prominent members of the judiciary were having none of it. Justice Hassan Nawaz Makhdoom in April 2026 ordered the Punjab provincial government, livestock department, and Lahore Waste Management Company to “formalize their commitment to the dog birth control police,” the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported.
Verdict for neuter, vaccinate, & release
That was followed on May 22, 2026, wrote Malik Asad for Dawn, when Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro “imposed a permanent ban on the poisoning, shooting, and indiscriminate killing of stray dogs in the federal capital, directing authorities to implement a ‘catch, neuter, vaccinate and release” program for controlling the population.
“In a 24-page detailed judgment,” Malik Asad reported, “Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro disposed of two constitutional petitions challenging the alleged non-implementation of the Stray Dog Population Control Policy for the Islamabad Capital Territory, ordering the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad, the Capital Development Authority, the Islamabad Capital Territory administration, and other relevant bodies to ensure that no arbitrary, ad hoc or inhumane action was taken against stray dogs.
“Relying on Islamic teachings from the Holy Quran and Sunnah [the Hadiths, or sayings, of the Prophet Mohammed] the court held that mass and indiscriminate killing of animals without lawful justification cannot be reconciled with Islamic law or international principles,” Malik Asad continued.
Ordered regulation of feeding street dogs
Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro “ruled that euthanasia may only be used as a limited and exceptional measure for critically ill, severely injured or rabid animals, and must be carried out by qualified veterinarians,” Malik Asad detailed.
“The court further directed authorities to maintain a complete record of all dogs captured, treated, sterilized, vaccinated, released or euthanized, and to frame standard operating procedures for their capture, transport, sheltering and treatment.”
Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro further “barred the removal of lactating, collared, vaccinated or healthy community dogs from their local areas except for lawful and properly recorded reasons,” and “directed improved waste management in residential and commercial areas to eliminate food sources for stray dogs, and the regulation of feeding of strays at designated places and times.”
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1890
Finally, Malik Asad mentioned, Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro “noted that Pakistan lacks uniform national legislation on stray animal management,” while the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1890, enacted during British rule, remains the only Pakistani national civil legislation against cruelty to animals.
The Dawn report by Malik Asad was affirmed in all essentials by Fiaz Mahmood, reporting for the rival national newspaper Express Tribune.
The court was informed, Fiaz Mahmood summarized, that the average cost of sterilizing and vaccinating a dog in Pakistan is approximately $68.00 in U.S. dollars.
“The verdict also reviewed stray dog management laws and practices in countries including Malaysia, Turkey, Indonesia, and India,” Fiaz Mahmood recounted.
(See Safety from dog attacks is basic human right, India Supreme Court rules and Spay/neuter of street dogs advances in Sri Lanka & Vietnam, halts in Turkey.)
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There are certainly few episodes of daily relief from accounts of despicable cruelty to sentient animals by our species, and for those of us who ‘feel their pain’, this is a weighty burden to bear.
One good thing about the horrific US vs. Iran war is the announcement that the equally horrific livestock shipping is completely stopped, though we know that this will resume in force if and when this war is finally concluded.
To learn of the drowning of the transport ship with so many animals on board was sickening as is the ‘pack-dog’ hunting & dog sledding in the Pakistani desert – what a vile species too many of our members are. How totally lacking in empathy and compassion!
I am ashamed to read of such inhumane conduct. But heartened that the courts have declared that the shooting of street dogs is against Islamic law and that there is a formalized commitment to S/N, vaccination and release.
One wonders why Pakistan has only one such law against cruelty to animals – are they so indifferent to such cruelty?
Again, even though I find these items abhorrent, I thank you for your work in reporting them, as only then can those who care and might be able to address it, be called upon to do so.,
Of note is that Pakistan has had a national law against cruelty to animals since 1890; even the earliest incarnation of the U.S. Animal Welfare Act dates only to 1966, and most of it only to 1971.
Also, the Pakistani adventure athlete Samar Khan is from the Pakistani desert, but did her dog sledding in the Swedish Far North.