In an effort to modernize the city, Sultan Mahmud II ordered all stray dogs to be exiled to various islands in the Marmara Sea. This continued uninterruptedly until the great decaninization of 1910, when the iron-fisted mayor of Istanbul, Suphi Bey, ordered the municipality to round up all the street dogs and exile them to the barren island of Sivriada, where they will surely die of hunger and thirst. The people of İstanbul vehemently opposed this carnage. They rescued as many dogs as they could and hid them away in their homes and barracks.
The municipality workers captured 80,000 dogs and sent them to Sivriada, never to return. The island was rock solid with no trees, vegetation, water or food. Local accounts describe how the howling of dogs were heard for days and weeks, keeping the city’s residents awake. Not a single dog survived. Some drowned while trying to escape. Some were killed by others for food. But most of them starved.
After the incident, the mayor proudly proclaimed: “After the declaration of the Constitution, I sent all the dogs from Istanbul to Hayırsızada. However, later I discovered 30,000 more in the city. I gradually destroyed them as well.”
The massacre of the city's stray dogs left a scar on the psyche of Istanbul residents. The people feared that God would wreak havoc on the city in return for their cruelty, and most residents blamed the turbulent times after 1910, including the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in the Balkan Wars and World War I, on the dog massacre.
