Mevlüde found a black cat on the university campus where she works: worried to see him with a closed eye, she took him to consult with veterinarians of the mayor of Istanbul, which multiplies the initiatives to pamper its street animals.
Visitors who come to admire the ancient mosques or Ottoman palaces on the banks of the Bosphorus are often surprised to see cats and dogs taking the best seats on the terraces of cafes and restaurants without being worried.
Like Mevlüde, many Istanbulians take care of dogs and cats in their neighborhoods, leaving their messes and shelters on the sidewalks. And the municipality is trying to ensure the health of these animals.
The "Vetbus" where Mevlüde drove his protégé, a bus transformed into a traveling clinic, is stationed several days a week in different parts of the Turkish megacity.
"We often get in touch with the municipality when we see animals that need care," she says once reassured about the condition of the cat, eyes now wide open.
The attention paid by the Istanbulites to their four-legged neighbors "comes partly from the Islamic tradition and partly from the structuring of the public space under the Ottoman Empire", explains Mine Yildirim, PhD student at the New School for Social New York Research.
In Ottoman Istanbul, according to the researcher, people evolved mainly between their home, the mosque and the market. The streets were the space of the dogs. "The city has grown but it has kept its animals as part of its public space," says Yildirim.
Some extermination policies were carried out in the early twentieth century to align with the West. And in the 1990s, the city was spreading poison on the streets to kill animals, says Yildirim.
But since the adoption of the animal protection law of 2004, town halls must take care of those streets.
"In general, people bring the animals they care for (...) to be given antiparasites," said Nihan Dinçer, Vetbus veterinarian.
Vaccines
In addition to this traveling clinic, the Greater Istanbul City Hall (IBB) has six health centers. Mevlüde gave two cats to one of them.
The goal is to vaccinate, sterilize and treat the 130,000 dogs and 165,000 stray cats in Istanbul, according to the city council. Equipped with an electronic chip, they must then be brought back to where they were collected - except those adopted meanwhile.
In 2018, 73,608 animals were cared for by a hundred veterinarians and technicians, against only 2,470 in 2004. And no case of rabies has been detected in Istanbul since 2016, according to the municipality.
She refuses to say how much these services cost. But according to Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli, his ministry supported the country's local authorities by the equivalent of $ 6 million between 2009 and 2018 to take care of street animals.
"If people knew how much money is being spent on these services, maybe some would be upset, but that's not revealed," says Yildirim, who is also coordinator of the animal rights group Dört Ayakli Sehir (The City). on all fours).
Croquettes
In the city, animals are often well fed. Individuals, restaurants and butchers reserve their remains.
But in the surrounding forests, "if we do not feed them, they will die," says BWI veterinarian Umut Demir during a patrol in the Belgrade forest.
Yildirim Mine, however, accuses the BWI of not systematically bringing animals back to where they were found, as it claims, and releasing them to these forests.
A ton of food is distributed every day by teams dispatched in vans filled with croquettes. The dogs come running to hear the horn, and seem as excited by the food as by the caresses distributed.
According to Tugçe Demirlek, chief veterinarian of the Sultangazi Health Center in western Istanbul, the fact that the animals are also well fed and cared for ensures their calm and limits aggression.
Despite the efforts of systematic sterilization, the number of stray dogs remains almost stable: "The animals that we do not catch continue to reproduce," says the veterinarian.
Puppies are born in nature in Istanbul, like this little golden dog of forty days, reported to the city by residents worried about finding moaning and alone at the edge of a road.
Once examined, he is put to adoption, in a special showcase of the Vetbus. He attracted a lot of attention that day, without finding a taker, and will return to spend the night at the health center.
"We will try our luck again tomorrow," smiled Mrs. Dinçer.