China's campaign to kill all pet dogs soldiers on / Stay the #%$! away from our dog / Dog Days in China

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http://www.shanghaiist.com/archives/2007/03/07/chinas_campaign.php

 

March 7, 2007

 

China's campaign to kill all pet dogs soldiers on

 

An unlinkable story from the South China Morning Post relays the chilling tale

of Chongqing municipality's Wanzhou district, where the local government has

ordered that all pet dogs be put to death because a resident died of rabies.

Just when you think being a dog owner in China can't get any scarier ...

 

The Wanzhou district government has issued a directive asking residents in the

central city area to have their dogs put down before March 15. Exemptions are

government department guard dogs, and those kept by research institutions, the

military and for commercial purposes.

The government will cull the dogs, whether they are vaccinated or not, if the

residents do not do so before the deadline. Owners will be fined between 200

yuan and 1,000 yuan for every dog found after that date.

 

 

Emphasis added by Shanghaiist. The story continues:

 

The Wanzhou directive, published on the district government's website, outlines

16 communities and townships suspected of having rabid dogs, including Taibai

Street where a resident died after being bitten by an unvaccinated dog last

month.

" All the dogs in the area should be killed. A compulsory cull phase will begin

after March 16. The forced cull will be carried out by police, " the directive

said.

 

Ran Hua , an official with the district disease control and prevention centre

said: " The move is aimed at protecting people's lives. Wanzhou has not had a

reported human case of rabies for the nine years up until last year when three

cases were reported. We must do something to prevent the situation from

worsening. "

 

Mr Ran said the cull and fine were in line with Chongqing's regulations.

Residents have voiced strong opposition to the cull but Mr Ran said the killing

was necessary to eliminate the threat.

 

Song Yu, a Wanzhou resident who does not have a pet, said: " I understand the

government's intention to protect people's lives, but the extreme decision to

kill is hard for many of my friends. How can they kill the dogs they've been

with for a long time with their own hands, especially when their pets have been

vaccinated? "

 

 

Shanghaiist also understands the government's intention to protect ... their

asses. If they would have done their jobs in the first place — educate the

public (not just dog owners) about rabies prevention, properly regulate and

enforce the vaccination procedure, or ... now here's an idea ... actually make

the dog licensing and vaccination process easy — thousands of beloved dogs would

not be paying with their lives today. And as long as we're violently

overreacting, why stop with dogs? Virtually any animal can carry the virus. Kill

'em all — that's what we say. And please start with Mr. Ran Hua.

 

Photo from theshanghaieye.

 

 

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http://www.shanghaiist.com/archives/2006/08/04/stay_the_fck_aw.php

 

August 4, 2006

Stay the #%$! away from our dog

 

Shanghaiist was horrified to find another story in the unlinkable South China

Morning Post about another planned mass-slaughter of dogs in another part of

China:

 

Officials from Jining city in central Shandong province on Thursday said they

would kill all dogs within five kilometres of villages where rabies was found,

the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The measures come in response to the deaths of 16 people in the city from rabies

in the past eight months.

 

It gave no estimate of how many animals would be killed but said the city had a

total population of about 500,000 dogs.

 

 

Shanghaiist reluctantly sought out the original Xinhua story referenced in the

SCMP version above, which can be found here. This news comes on the heels of the

brutal slaughter of 50,000 dogs in Yunnan last week:

 

Police and public health officials in southern China have clubbed, hanged or

electrocuted almost 50,000 dogs in a week-long crackdown on rabies, local media

reported yesterday.

Squads in Mouding, Yunnan province, grabbed pets from their owners while they

were out for walks and beat them to death on the spot, the Shanghai Daily

reported.

 

Dog owners were offered a five yuan (40p) reward for killing their animals.

Those who attempted to hide their pets indoors were flushed out by late-night

squads who made loud noises outside to make the dogs bark.

 

 

Just the thought of anyone even trying to take our dog away from us for any

reason makes Shanghaiist alternately sick and completely livid. While we

acknowledge the serious public health threat posed by rabies in stray dogs, or

dogs whose owners are incapable of or unwilling to take responsibility, we can't

help but wonder how many of those 50,000 were actually licensed dogs, vaccinated

against rabies. It's one thing to protect public health interests ... but

thoughtless, needless slaughter of beloved, responsibly kept pets?

 

Shanghaiist will say it again: Stay away from our dog. We mean it.

 

 

 

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http://www.chinalyst.net/node/3623

 

 

Dog Days in China

 

Many of you might have read our post regarding the horrible mass-slaughter of

dogs in August. Sadly, it seems we could be experiencing the third wave of the

canine cull, based on this Economic Daily report (in Chinese) that says five

major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Wuhan are

going to address " dog problems " .

 

Tang Yunli, deputy director of Beijing Public Security Bureau, said the bureau

is going to extend its admistrative reach to include pet dogs in the city and

implement the following measures: 1. convene some meetings on pet dogs; 2. focus

on problems such as dogs without licenses, large dogs, households with multiple

dogs, dogs that are walked without leashes, dogs in public venues and related

public sanitation issues, etc. 3. dividing the work into public relations,

inspections, enforcement, and evaluation. 4. Establish an all-around, long term

management system. 5. Publicize and supervise citizens in registering their pet

dogs, as well as vaccine the dogs regularly.

 

Tang also said Beijing Public Security Bureau hopes to achieve in the future a

100 percent register rate, 100 vaccination rate for registered dogs, spreading

inforamtion as fully as possible and limiting the number stray dogs to as little

as possible. Furthermore, they hope that there will be no large dogs, violent

dogs and more than one dog to a family in the downtown area, with no big dogs

allowed on the street (or chained and housed if in rural area), no walking of

dogs in public locations such as supermarkets, shops, commercial streets,

restaurant, park, green areas, schools, and hospitals. Other goals include

making sure that dogs are leashed when being walked, do not urinate wherever

they please, banning illegal dog markets and the street sale of dogs, regulating

veterinary hospitals and lastly, decreasing the number of cases of dogs

attacking residents. All this in order to build a beautiful and HARMONIOUS

Beijing.

 

Jiang Xianfa, deputy director of Shanghai Public Security Bureau said

Shanghai’s problem is mainly one of unlicensed pet dogs, households with more

than one dog and uncivilized behaviour of dog owners.

 

Wu Shunchang, director of Tianjing Public Security Bureau introduced that they

have started working on dogs management since September 12, and since then the

unlicensed dogs and walking dogs without a leash have been effectively curbed.

In one month's time, there were 20,487 newly registered dogs, and the police

caught 5437 strays (though we wonder what happened to them).

 

He Jing, deputy director of Guangzhou Public Security Bureau said the police is

going to take three measures to control the dogs in the city: 1. promote the

laws among citizens, 2. regional police checks (i.e. raids) of homes to ensure

that people register and vaccine their dogs and 3. crack down on the illegal

fostering of dogs and the numbers of stray dogs in the streets, thereby

improving the living environment for citizens.

 

Xia Zhigang, deputy director of Wuhan Public Security Bureau said they have set

up limited area for dog owners early in 1995, now they are going to set up a

no-dogs area and enforce the implanting of pet dogs with digital chips.

 

Of course we KNOW what’s going on here, the recent soaring reports of dogs

attacking residents, you can see here, here and here (in Chinese). The ban on

major pet forums (see luckycats announcement here and Chinapetforum announcement

here) discuss the dog-related measures in the city. There is also a lot of

discussion in the BBS of this animal protection site started by dog lovers

 

, including a petitions against the injuring and killing of dogs. You can also

read an English report here.

We have also found an unconfirmed stories, not found in any official reports, of

a middle-school girl in Beijing who jumped off the fifteenth floor of a building

when the Man came to take away her dog. She pleaded with them as they tied up

her whimpering dog, finally threatening to jump out the window if they took the

dog away. The dog authorities called her bluff -- except it wasn't a bluff.

 

As an animal lover, we felt sickened and furious at all the pictures of dogs

beaten to death we came across while searching for information for this post.

Sadly, it reminds us of the crazy sparrow campaign dating back to some forty

years ago, though the victims are now innocent dogs and some predict that stray

cats will be next. This BBS thread (in Chinese) in a cat forum claims that

Beijing is will start its campaign against stray cats starting November 7.

Luckycats.net, a NGO dedicated to saving and helping stray cats, released this a

announcement today as well, and though the information is somewhat vague, it

seems that the crackdown on stray cats will last until November 24-25. Fucking

hell! Be aware, Shanghai residents, if this is happening in Beijing, it could

happen here in probably next few month.

 

As a Chinese, this Shanghaiist feels ashamed and extremely infuriated -- what's

wrong with these government officials? Why do innocent animals have to pay for

mistakes of human beings? Why has the Chinese government all of a sudden

retrogressed ten years? And who can help the animals in China?

 

On an ironic note, all of this is happening in the year of the Dog.