"It's just one piece of the puzzle…": practitioners' perspectives on the use of sterilisation in the management of free-roaming dog populations.

Surgical sterilisation is a common approach to managing free-roaming dog (FRD) populations, used predominantly with the aim of reducing or stabilising the population. However, monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of such programmes is limited and there can be a tendency to equate numbers of dogs sterilised with success. The aim of this study was to examine practitioners perspectives on the role of sterilisation in managing FRD populations, including insights into its perceived benefits and limitations, and the wider facilitators and challenges that shape these efforts. Purposive convenience sampling was used to recruit 15 programme staff from 12 organisations working in dog population management (DPM) globally, although Africa and the Middle East were not represented. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken and explored experiences of managing FRD populations through sterilisation. Reflexive thematic analysis generated four themes: (1) 'Seeing only part of the problem' describes complexities in relation to FRD populations that are frequently overlooked when planning and designing programmes; (2) 'Not a silver bullet' illustrates participant experiences of outcomes not materialising as expected after the introduction of a sterilisation programme; (3) 'Looking beyond the dogs' illustrates an increasing awareness of the importance of human factors in dog population management, rather than interventions that are solely focused on dogs; and (4) 'Sterilisation within a wider strategy' describes key implementation facilitators perceived as important for programme success. Reframing DPM as a 'wicked problem' that does not have a simple solution could help in the development and management of sustainable interventions. This would avoid oversimplification of the problem, and therefore the solution, and instead address these complexities to enable more impactful outcomes.