(CN) No way out for Shanghai's crusading cat lover

[Guest guest]

No way out for Shanghai's crusading cat lover

By Ananth Krishnan

Shanghai Daily

2008-10-12

 

IT started with a small romantic gesture. Duo Zirong was on the way home from

dinner some 20 years ago, when her date stopped at a subway station and bought

her a kitten from a Beijing pet-shop.

 

That obscure little cat sparked in her a passion that would become a life's

obsession - an obsession that, some animal rights activists say, has gone too

far and is now seriously endangering the lives of the animals she wants to

protect.

 

It was an obsession that led her, on two summer nights in July and August last

year, to confront truckers who were allegedly transporting more than 1,000 cats

to restaurants in Guangzhou and to intervene to save the felines.

 

More than a year has passed since the rescue which shot Duo into the public eye,

but public opinion about her remains sharply divided.

 

In the aftermath of the rescue, local media celebrated her as a heroine, as

China's greatest animal rights crusader.

 

But several animal welfare groups and bloggers have since raised serious

questions about the state of the animals' health under her care - and even about

the state of Duo's own mind, painting a picture of her as a crazed hoarder who

is endangering her pets.

 

I went to Duo's home in Minhang district recently to seek some answers and found

that nothing can prepare a visitor for the sheer absurdity of her living

situation.

 

Cats lie everywhere, clustering across the floor of her front room. Even the

staircase leading to the first floor of the house is not clear - cats of all

colors and shapes lie curled next to each other, side by side on every step. But

for a home with so many cats, Duo's is also surprisingly clean. Bloggers have

put up horrific pictures of the house on the Web, describing filthy living

conditions and floors covered with excrement and cat hair. I found no traces of

either.

 

Several dozen cats were ill and maimed, but they were housed in a separate

enclosure under the gaze of two hired helpers. Piles of pet food lined the

walls. Feeding time was a mad frenzy: dozens of cats scrambled over one another

to get their food, and chaos reigned.

 

The front of Duo's house has been converted into a shop window in an effort to

attract the attention of passersby and, possibly, get their interest in taking

some of the cats for adoption. A handwritten sign posted on the window outside

asks for the help of volunteers.

 

Duo could sure use the help she now accepts, albeit reluctantly, that she is

increasingly struggling to manage the situation.

 

" I want to free myself of this burden, " Duo says. " I want to move out of this

city, move out of this house, and give these animals a better environment. But I

can't. "

 

Abandoned

 

Duo's Minhang residence is her third home in Shanghai. She moved to the city in

1999, and was struck by the number of abandoned animals she saw in the city's

streets. After watching a group of kids in her neighbourhood brutalize a cat

that was strung from a tree, she decided she had seen enough.

 

She began taking in abandoned cats from neighbors and as word spread in a city

where animal shelters are scarce, Duo soon had droves of people coming to her

for help. Before long, she had more than 100 cats in her care.

 

She was soon forced to leave her Xujiahui apartment - not the ideal place to

raise 100 felines - and moved to a larger suburban home in Xidu town. The SARS

outbreak forced her to move again when neighbors complained about the health

hazard posed by the pets.

 

Speaking to Duo in the surreal surroundings of her Minhang home, as cats clamber

over my feet, it is clear that she is facing an uphill struggle to maintain this

bizarre life: she has already sold her own home to raise money for the cats'

upkeep, and has hence been forced to move in with them in the small Minhang

property.

 

Her mother-in-law, who assists with the finances, said keeping the cats cost

them " 50,000 yuan every month, " expenses they pay for with the proceeds raised

from the sale of the house, and also from donations and her partner's income.

 

Animal rights

 

But animal rights groups and activists say she has repeatedly refused their help

and brought the burden on herself.

 

Taozi, an animal rescuer who was with Duo during the rescue last July, accuses

her of only being interested in money. " She cares more about money than actually

improving the environment for the cats, " Taozi said.

 

" She is clever in using the media. She believes the more cats she has, the more

desperate she would seem to the public, and the more money she will make (from

donations). "

 

Taozi even said Duo might be living in denial about the state of her pets. " We

have enough reason to doubt her motivations, " she said. " We have asked her

several times to give accounts of all the money she has spent, but she still

refuses to do so. "

 

When I asked Duo to reveal her financial accounts, her response affirmed Taozi's

claim: she said she did not have " exact " figures to show. More worryingly, Duo

also does not maintain any records of her pets - she becomes evasive when

questioned about how many cats have died in her care.

 

During my visit, there appeared to be far less than the 700 cats she claimed to

have in the home - there were, at most, half that number. Following the rescues

in July and August, Duo had more than 1,000 cats.

 

Duo said 500 other cats were in shelters in Changning, Pudong and Nanhui

districts, which still leaves at least around 200 unaccounted animals. Taozi

said volunteers had " seen Duo dump bags of dead cats in the garbage, " but these

claims could not be verified.

 

Animal rights activists have objected - even violently, on occasion - to Duo's

hoarding of cats.

 

Volunteers from certain groups have made several attempts to break into Duo's

home and forcibly set the cats free. (In one such incident, Duo alleges, her

mother-in-law fractured an arm trying to prevent the volunteers from breaking

in.)

 

These experiences have made Duo distrustful. Consequently, she has repeatedly

refused the help of groups like the SCAA which have excellent records in dealing

with hoarders, helping them with medical care and sanitation issues.

 

" They aren't happy that I am raising these cats by myself, " Duo explained, when

I asked why she doesn't take their help.

 

" Some groups even tried to release all my cats when there were truckers waiting

to catch them, " she said.

 

Motives

 

The SCAA declined to comment on Duo Zirong, but said their " position that

hoarding of animals is a disease and that animal welfare laws are needed to

address this serious issue is in line with that of established international

animal welfare organizations. "

 

The SCAA has also said that Duo's motives would not be questioned if she had

" sound " medicare policies. Duo has two full-time helpers and vets who come in

frequently and says that is all she can afford.

 

There can be no denying the care that Duo provides leaves a lot to be desired.

But does that make her the villain that some animal rescuers paint her to be?

 

The debate about Duo also reflects a more complicated tension within the animal

rights discourse.

 

The SCAA's position on hoarding is in line with international parameters - a

position which asserts that survival of cats in a cramped environment poses

dangerous health risks to communities and to the cats themselves, and only

extends their lives " in a contagious, disease-ridden, and cruel existence " , as

SCAA founder Carol Wolfson told Shanghai Daily last year.

 

While Duo acknowledges that the conditions she provides are far from ideal, she

argues that she gives her cats a life that is surely better than on Shanghai's

streets, where cat-catchers lie in wait.

 

" Every creature has a right to live, " Duo says, " and we cannot deny them that

right. " She also seems closed to the concept of mercy-killing to relieve the

cats' suffering this is an area where the international animal rights discourse

has repeatedly come into conflict with more traditional religious beliefs.

 

Recently, in England, the mercy killing of a cow by the RSPCA caused outrage

among the country's Hindu community.

 

It appears to be no coincidence that Duo has a deep interest in Hinduism and

Buddhism - nowadays, she spends much of her free time studying religious texts,

and professes a deep understanding of Hindu religious beliefs.

 

The reality, however, is there are few animal shelters in Shanghai.

 

Even organizations like the SCAA are not shelters per se, and have space for no

more than 50 animals. On its Website, the SCAA says it doesn't have capacity to

accept any more pets.

 

Duo's solution to the problem is not sustainable, and is also, to say the least,

unconventional.

 

The care she provides for the cats is far from perfect - many die in her care

every week - and she does not have the medical wherewithal that a shelter would

provide.

 

She has tried to give away the cats through adoption, but takers are few when

the animal in question is sick or maimed.

 

But ultimately, a fact that cannot be ignored in judging Duo Zirong is that

without her the hundreds of cats in her care might already have met their fate

on restaurant tables in Guangzhou.

 

Is a life spent in suffering worse than a fate that is death? That is a question

with no clear answer.

 

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=376520 & type=Feature