The bark of Turkey’s new street dog capture and cull law is said by some to be much worse than its bite. Whatever the reality, however, with the UK tabloid press sinking its teeth into the emotive tale of Britons boycotting Turkish holidays over the “dog massacre law”, the country’s tourism officials will be anxious that they could be waving goodbye to a chunk of Ankara’s ever-important FX revenues.

Both The Sun and Mail Online on August 12 ran stories on animal-loving UK tourists vowing to cancel their holidays over the legislation that instructs local authorities to round up and, in some instances, exterminate stray dogs.

Both reported on a growing tweet storm under the hashtag #BoycottTurkey. “Cheap holidays don’t justify condoning such wickedness!” wrote one social media user, urging people to “Think before you book”.

The Sun reported on unverified claims of numerous mass graves of dogs killed by people said to have quickly begun hunting the animals after the law was passed in July.

“The heartbreaking massacre law is designed to take dogs off the street and house them in shelters, however, a clause in the law states any dog that displays aggression or is sick will be put down,” the publication wrote. It also cited a BBC report that a UK-based charity, Happy Paws Puppy Rescue, is cooperating with pounds in Turkey to re-home stray dogs in Britain.

Various estimates put Turkey’s street dog population at somewhere between three to four million. Many are treated like pets by neighbourhoods. Occasionally, street dogs attack and kill passersby, including children, or cause fatal traffic accidents by running in the road or prompting panicked individuals to run in front of oncoming traffic.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey is confronted by a problem “like no other civilised country”, which is “growing exponentially”. People, he said, wanted “safe streets”.

The difficulty is that Turkey has nowhere near enough animal sanctuary places to make the new law work and critics worry officials faced by no space in shelters will take the “easy” option, leading to the euthanising of huge numbers of dogs.

There are presently 322 animal shelters with a capacity for 105,000 dogs in Turkey.

Animal rights campaigners have proposed that a mass sterilisation of dogs be launched in place of the capture or exterminate strategy.