(HKG - CN) Stop slaughter of companion animals

February 5, 2010

South China Morning Post

Letter to the Editor

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inion

Feb 05, 2010

Food and Health Secretary York Chow Yat-ngok told the Legislative Council

that about 14,800 dogs and some cats were killed in Hong Kong last year.

It's the same every year. Dr Chow has been in his job for more than five

years so the responsibility for the cruelty and death stops at his desk. His

bureau sets policy for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation

Department, which does the killing.

Dr Chow is a good man. He ranks among our best ministers. He's a former

surgeon and hospital administrator whose charitable work includes promoting

sports for the disabled. Dr Chow is sensitive to the plight of animals; I

have seen this at one of the animal welfare meetings I have attended with

him.

Why, as minister, does he let the killing continue? Bureaucratic inertia is

the only explanation campaigners can think of. The officials who report to

him won't budge.

For more than 15 years, welfare groups have tried to get the message

through: don't resort to killing surplus companion animals, prevent it

instead. Divert taxpayers' money used to fund trapping and death to

preventive measures. Control the import, breeding and selling of companion

animals; require breeders' licences and differential licensing fees for

intact and desexed animals; tighten pet shop regulations; legalise

trap-neuter-release programmes for dogs and subsidise desexing; and control

construction site dogs.

Campaigners have met all political parties and district councils and given

presentations in Legco. The majority of representatives, who abhor the

endless rounds of killing, see the futility of it and understand the

solutions, want change.

Jethro Roger Medcalf, Sai Kung

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