Olympics clean-up Chinese style: Inside Beijing's shocking death camp for cats

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Olympics clean-up Chinese style: Inside Beijing's

shocking death camp for cats

By SIMON PERRY

 

Last updated at 16:23pm on 9th March 2008

 

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned

by their owners and sent to die in secretive

government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive

to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic

Games.

 

Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed

into cages so small they cannot even turn around.

 

Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups

describe as death camps on the edges of the city.

 

The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign

warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering

residents to help clear the streets of them.

 

Cat owners, terrified by the disease warning, are

dumping their pets in the streets to be picked up by

special collection teams.

 

Paranoia is so intense that six stray cats -including

two pregnant females - were beaten to death with

sticks by teachers at a Beijing kindergarten, who

feared they might pass illnesses to the children.

 

China's leaders are convinced that animals pose a

serious urban health risk and may have contributed to

the outbreak of SARS - a deadly respiratory virus - in

2003.

 

But the crackdown on cats is seen by animal

campaigners as just one of a number of extreme

measures being taken by communist leaders to ensure

that its capital appears clean, green and welcoming

during the Olympics.

 

Polluting factories in and around the city are being

ordered to shut down or relocate during the Games to

ease Beijing's choking smog and drivers are allowed

out on to the roads only three times a week.

 

Fares on the city's underground network have been cut

to just two yuan (14p) for any journey - a six-fold

reduction on some routes - to keep people off buses,

and beggars and street sleepers are being moved to

out-of-town camps or given train fares back to their

home provinces.

 

Meanwhile, taxi drivers have been made to attend

lessons in how to greet passengers politely in English

and a city-wide courtesy campaign has been launched to

teach Beijing's notoriously dour and grumpy citizens

how to smile and be pleasant to foreigners.

 

The cull of Beijing's estimated 500,000 cat population

is certain to provoke international outrage as it

comes just over a year after the Chinese were

criticised for rounding up and killing stray dogs

across the country.

 

Animal welfare groups in China are already protesting,

but their members fear punishment from the

authorities.

 

Officials say people can adopt animals from the 12 cat

pounds set up around the city, but welfare groups say

they are almost impossible to get inside and believe

few cats survive.

 

One cat lovers' group negotiated the release of 30

pets from one of the compounds in Shahe, north-west

Beijing, but said they were in such a pitiful

condition that half of them died within days of their

release.

 

" These cats are being left to die. It is very

inhumane, " said the group's founder Yan Qi, who runs a

sanctuary for cats.

 

" People don't want to keep cats in Beijing any more so

they abandon them or send them to the compounds.

 

" When we went inside, we saw about 70 cats being kept

in cages stacked one on top of the other in two tiny

rooms.

 

" Disease spreads quickly among them and they die

slowly in agony and distress. The government won't

even do the cats the kindness of giving them lethal

injections when they become sick. They just wait for

them to die.

 

" It is the abandoned pets that suffer the most and die

the soonest. They relied so much on their owners that

they can't cope with the new environment.

 

" Most refuse to eat or drink and get sick more quickly

than the feral cats. "

 

Ms Yan's group has now been denied access to the

pounds. " We do not believe any of the cats that go in

there survive, " she said. " They are like death camps. "

 

 

Ms Yan said there was another reason for people

abandoning their cats - the 200 yuan (£14) fee they

face if they want to have their pets neutered and

tagged.

 

" We have tried to negotiate with the government to

stop the round-ups and to introduce cut-price

neutering services so that people can afford to keep

their pets but they won't listen to us, " she said.

 

" They are not thinking about the cats. They just want

to get results in the quickest way possible, by

clearing as many cats from the city as they can. "

 

Retired doctor Hu Yuan, 80, runs one of the few

remaining refuges for abandoned pets in her ramshackle

home in the ancient Long Tou Jing area of Beijing.

 

She shares her tiny home with 250 abandoned cats and

has taken in 70 over the past 12 months alone.

 

She pays for neutering and food from her pension and

donations. She said: " If I don't take them in, the

government will kill them.

 

" People believe what the government tells them and

that is why they are abandoning more and more family

pets. "

 

She said the problem could be traced back to former

president Jiang Zemin for the crackdown.

 

" He didn't like dogs so he decided to have dogs

killed. But there was a bad reaction from the foreign

media and they were pressured to stop.

 

" Now they have stopped killing dogs but the new

victims are cats. It is all connected to the

Olympics. "

 

Cats are regularly dumped on her doorstep late at

night by owners frightened by the government campaign.

 

 

" The situation is very bad now, " said Ms Hu. " When

women get pregnant, the doctor will ask them if they

have a cat in the house.

 

" If they reply Yes, they tell them, 'You must get rid

of it, it will be bad for the baby'.

 

" I keep all the cats in my house and 100 of them sleep

in my bedroom at night. I am too frightened to let

them out. If they go outside, they will be taken away

and killed.

 

" The government is not telling people the truth. Look

at me. I live with them 24 hours a day, seven days a

week and I am very healthy. "

 

The round-up has been particularly intense in areas

around Olympic venues and in streets and alleys

surrounding five-star hotels where guests will stay

during the summer games.

 

Despite the health warnings, the round-up of cats has

led to a surge in the number of restaurants in the

capital serving cat meat, according to Ms Hu.

 

She said hundreds of cats were also being sent to

Guangzhou in southern China, an area infamous for

restaurants that serve meat from cats and dogs and

exotic animals such as snakes and tigers.

 

It was in July last year that district officials were

instructed to begin an intense round-up of cats as

part of Beijing's pre-Olympics clean-up. Now notices

have been put up urging residents to hand in cats.

 

Welfare groups estimate that tens of thousands have

been collected in the past few months.

 

The Mail on Sunday went to the cat pound in Shahe on

the north-western fringes of Beijing but we were

repeatedly refused admission.

 

" No one can come in without official papers, " staff

shouted from behind padlocked steel gates.

 

At another, larger compound in Da Niu Fang village,

the sound of cats wailing could be clearly heard

coming from a cluster of tin-roofed sheds, but workers

denied they were holding any cats.

 

" There are no cats here, go away. No one is allowed

inside unless you have official permission, " a

security guard said.

 

The killing of the six stray cats at the kindergarten

- where staff at a Beijing cigarette factory leave

their children - is the most striking illustration of

the city-wide fear of cats.

 

A teacher at the nursery said: " We did it out of love

for the children. We were worried the cats might harm

them. These six cats had been hanging around the

kindergarten looking for food.

 

" So three male teachers put out plates of tuna in

cages for bait, trapped the cats and then beat them to

death with sticks.

 

" We were very worried the children might try to stroke

them and that the cats might scratch them or pass on

diseases. We had to get rid of the cats and this was

the only way to do it. "

 

Christie Yang of the charity Animals Asia, which

liaises with the Beijing animal welfare groups, said:

" We are seriously concerned.

 

" We understand that with the Olympic Games the Beijing

government is eager to show the world the city in a

good light.

 

" But capturing and dealing with cats in such an

inhumane way will seriously tarnish the image of

Beijing and the Games. "

 

• Names of the animal campaigners have been changed as

the people we interviewed are concerned about

officials' reaction to our story.