It’s a wolf-eat-dog situation in the southern Armenian mountain town of Sisian, which has become the epicenter of a gray invasion. Residents now avoid nighttime strolls to avoid encounters with hungry wolves roaming the streets. The animals have been driven out from nearby forests by heavy snow that blanketed the mountains with up to three meters of the white stuff.
The invaders, emboldened by hunger and an unusually harsh winter, reportedly are raiding the town and nearby villages, snatching up dozens of pet dogs, killing livestock and attacking humans.
In another neighbor, Georgia, the government’s wolf policy is diametrically opposed to that in Armenia. Both countries liberalized wolf hunting rules to help the population deal with increased attacks, but if in Armenia the state pays people to kill the predators, in Georgia hunters need to pay the state 100 laris (about $60.27) for a license to kill the animals.
Almost simultaneously, Armenia and Georgia have decided to rethink the ways of keeping themselves nice and tidy. Both countries' waste-management initiatives differ broadly, but have one common denominator -- both are likely to increase municipal cleaning fees.
The Armenian version, which allows local authorities to double the current cleaning rate to 400 drams (about $1.07) per family member, took flack from opposition lawmakers. Critics charge that linking the rate to the number of family members fails to reflect socio-economic differences in income and in rates of waste-generation.
“Five or six residents may be registered to reside in the castles of oligarchs, but the leftovers from [their] daily parties are clearly not comparable to the amount of garbage thrown out by an economically vulnerable family,” argued Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun parliamentarian Arfik Minasian, Regnum.ru reported.
Another MP, Victor Dalakian, an independent, struck an even more populist note, saying that the Armenian government should concern itself more with an economic situation that has led to "a struggle between dogs and people" as they scavenge through waste, a practice in both Armenia and Georgia.
