(TW) Buddhist monk & U.S. teen sparked the Taiwan animal cause

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

 

 

Buddhist monk & U.S. teen sparked the Taiwan animal cause

by Merritt Clifton

 

 

TAIPEI--Horror stories about Taiwan animal shelters still

surface, despite the progress of recent years, long after an

international hue-and-cry brought the 1998 passage of the first

Taiwanese humane law.

The law forbade dog-eating, rare in Taiwan even then, and

addressed individual acts of abuse and neglect, but focused on

animal control practices.

Taiwan animal advocates are still struggling to ensure that

the law is observed, and to win improvements.

Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan director Chu

Tseng-hung, known in the west as Wu Hung, in November 2009 reported

that 83% of Taiwanese townships still relegate animal control duties

to garbage collectors. Wu Hung told Jamie Wong of The China Post

that he and other EAST investigators had discovered many examples of

neglected shelters, animals left without food or water, and

" animals eating moldy feeds from containers with worms, ants and

droppings mixed in the boxes, " Wong summarized.

Wu Hung noted that many badly designed shelters were wrapped

in canvas and plastic sheets to try to stop the winter winds. The

government shelters in the Taipei suburbs of Tucheng, Yingge, and

Hsindian prohibited EAST from taking photographs.

Visiting some of the same facilities, and others, I

verified Wu Hung's complaints. But, largely through Wu Hung's work,

the worst examples of Taiwan shelter neglect have receded from the

Taipei region, where about 10% of the Taiwanese population lives,

out into the rural districts--which 12 years ago usually had neither

shelters nor animal control departments. Problematic dogs were

typically poisoned, using strategms that enabled the poisoners to

pretend that the dogs' deaths were accident, and would therefore not

bring bad karma to those who put the poison out.

Since 1998 the reported volume of animals killed in Taiwanese

shelters, including through neglect, has dropped by 40% to 70%,

depending on how the somewhat ambiguous official statistics are read.

Wu Hung founded EAST after leaving the Life Conservation

Association, his first organization, began in 1994. Sponsored by

the late journalist and animal advocate Ann Cottrell Free, who

reported on the retreat to Taiwan by the pre-Communist Chinese

government that made Taiwan a nation, Wu Hung later in 1994 toured

the U.S.

 

Blunt words

 

Wu Hung vigorously exposed and denounced the then-common

Taiwanese practice of deliberately locking up problematic stray dogs

to starve to death. This, like the " accidental " poisoning, was

done to avoid directly killing the dogs.

Wu Hung, a Buddhist monk, pointed out that this was a

travesty of Buddhism. He took his campaign on to Europe. By 1996

the World Society for the Protection of Animals, People for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals, the International Fund for Animal

Welfare, and the Humane Society Inter-national division of the

Humane Society of the U.S. had all sent investigators and consulting

experts to Taiwan--who all affirmed Wu Hung's charges, and pressed

the Taiwanese government to do something about it.

In 1997, a year before passage of the humane law, the

Taiwanese government announced a costly plan to end the controversy

and foreign criticism by exterminating all street dogs. Two visiting

consultants encouraged the plan by demonstrating the use of

pentobarbital to kill dogs, unaware that importing or possessing

pentobarbital, at the time, was illegal. One of them also asserted

that Taiwan, where up to 93% of the residents observe Buddhism or

Buddhist-influenced faiths, needed to scrap the Buddhist life ethic

in order to accept routinely killing homeless dogs.

Taiwan moved toward U.S.-type animal control, including

killing impounded dogs after a holding period, but the scheme to

annihilate street dogs was not seriously pursued. Instead,

Taiwanese street dogs found an unlikely young defender.

 

Sharpe critique

 

At age 12, in 1994, American teenager Mina Sharpe, living

with her parents in Taipei, formed the Taiwan Abandoned Animal Rescue

Foundation to find U.S. homes for rescued street dogs. As one of the

first activists to demonstrate use of the Internet to promote

adoptions and rally global support, Sharpe inspired a legion of

others.

In March 2000, shortly before returning to the U.S. with her

family, Sharpe contributed to ANIMAL PEOPLE a cutting critique of

the international interventions in Taiwan. She blamed the

international delegations for fueling intolerance of street dogs and

for introducing the use of gas chambers without ensuring that they

were properly used.

Sharpe scolded Wu Hung as well, for acquiescing to the

recommendations of international consultants, even when the

half-followed recommendations appeared to make the treatment of

shelter animals worse.

Sharpe in 2006 was twice convicted of hoarding animals at

addresses in southern California. She is, nonetheless, remembered

in Taipei by Taiwanese and expatriates alike as the firebrand

who--with the quiet, studious Wu Hung--provided the yin-and-yang

forces that kindled the Taiwan humane movement. Ten years after

Sharpe left Taiwan, I heard spontaneous praise of her influence at

shelters, veterinary clinics, and gatherings of activists

throughout Taipei.

Wu Hung's most recent investigations followed reports in

August 2009 that Typhoon Morakot had killed as many as 7,000 dogs at

overcrowded shelters in Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, along the

south coast.

In actuality, ten animal shelters, housing about 1,000 dogs

among them, were badly damaged. About 100 dogs were killed or lost,

the Central News Agency found.

But there are reportedly several severely overcrowded

shelters in the area, most of them haphazardly privately funded to

house dogs who have been removed from cities lest they might be

killed.

Many changes

The Taiwan Council of Agriculture in January 2009 disclosed

that around 1,000 dogs at shelters in four counties were poisoned by

aflatoxin fungi that accidentally contaminated locally manufactured

food. The maker, Ji-Tai Forage, recalled and composted 29 metric

tons of " Peter's Kind-Hearted Dog Food, " produced only for shelter

consumption.

Gruesome as the incident was, it illustrated the changes in

Taiwanese sheltering since Wu Hung began his campaigns: producing

food for shelter dogs, even from potentially contaminated materials,

was not even imagined then as a potential business niche, because

then shelter dogs were usually not fed, unless visited by " kind

mothers " as Taiwanese animal rescuers are commonly called.

" Kind mothers " have been supplanted in some communities by

privately funded " no-kill shelters " and " charity animal hospitals, "

whose goal is often just preserving animal life, with little

apparent concern for the quality of life the animals endure.

I visited one of the oldest and largest, the Life Caring &

Animal Rescue Organization " hospital " in Yingge. About two dozen

dogs, several with debilitating injuries, sprawled on dirty rags in

the reception area. Two of the healthiest, including a young golden

Labrador retriever, were chained to the wall in a manner that

prevented them from lying down. Other animals were in cages or

carriers. Most of the multi-floor building consisted of rooms of

animals in wire-bottomed cages, without resting boards, usually

without bedding, in filth and darkness. Many were so closely caged

that they could barely move.

Shelter scores

ANIMAL PEOPLE has long used a 100-point scoring system for

shelters based on the " Five Freedoms " promoted by Compassion In World

Farming. Up to seven points per criterion are awarded for a shelter

ensuring that animals are free from thirst, hunger, and

malnutrition; free from discomfort; free from pain, injury, and

disease; free to express normal behavior; and free from fear and

distress.

Up to seven points per criterion are also awarded for a

shelter being open to visitation and easily located; clean and

attractive to visitors; having an active sterilization program;

having an effective adoption program; having an effective humane

education program; having effective odor control; having effective

noise control; having adequate community-based fundraising to

maintain and improve operations; and actively striving to realize

potential.

Two points may be given for attempted innovation.

An average U.S. shelter score is 75.

The largest complex of " kind mothers " shacks scored 19

points. The Life Caring & Animal Rescue Organization " hospital "

scored 14. Only four shelters that ANIMAL PEOPLE representatives

have ever visited have scored worse.

The three government shelters that I visited around Taipei

scored 23, 42, and 70 points, respectively.

The lowest score went to a shelter on a tea plantation

outside Hsindian, located so far up a steep, winding road as to be

almost inaccessible to all but the most determined visitors. The

shelter design was conceptually flawed because all male dogs were to

be kept in one large open area, with all female dogs in another. In

practice this meant that the larger and more aggressive dogs were

able to monopolize the apparently inadequate food rations. One

German shepherd had been removed from the run for male dogs for food

aggression, and was instead kept in a wire-floored cage barely

larger than himself.

The 42-point score was awarded to the Zhonge shelter, almost

as remote, atop an overgrown former landfill. The Zhonge shelter

features an agility course, but the unworn grass where dogs should

be wearing grooves demonstrates that it is seldom used. Built and

managed to a close approximation of U.S. animal control norms, the

Zhonge shelter appeared to be understaffed, and appeared to have

been designed with the notion that volunteers would help it to do

much more than it is now accomplishing. The location,

unfortunately, keeps volunteers away.

 

Design flaw

 

The Taipei Animal Shelter in ShiJr combines similar animal

facilities with a large office and reception area that includes a pet

care library and a mini-classroom. A lack of signage in the

neighborhood makes it, too, somewhat difficult to find, but it is

accessible.

The major fault at the Taipei Animal Shelter is a

well-intentioned design flaw. Correctly understanding that

maintaining air exchange is essential to keeping a healthy shelter

environment, the designers installed huge fans at one end of the

kennels that create a constant draft, especially for the dogs housed

closest to the fans. Besides chilling dogs in cold weather, the

fans suck any airborne diseases through the entire kennel area.

Air exchange in a shelter is best accomplished, as the North

Shore Animal League has shown and taught since 1991, by a system of

heating from above the human head level, contrary to how heating is

done in most buildings, and then drawing the warm air downward

through each cage or run, to draw odors and aerosolized

disease-bearing particles down, away from the noses of the animals

and visitors. Each cage or run should have a separate air intake and

draw-down vent, so that any disease-bearing particles released in

one animal's living space do not infect any other.

Conceptually counter-intuitive, this type of air exchange

system is now used by progressive shelters throughout the world.

 

Promising example

 

Promise for the future of sheltering in Taiwan is presently

best exemplified by Love for Animals, Care for Life, locally

called LCA. A high-volume dog and cat sterilization clinic in ShiJr

that offers discounted or free care, LCA serves a clientele

including " kind mothers " from everywhere within a reasonable taxi

ride.

Funded for two years by a bequest administrated through a

local university, LCA has now operated for just over one year,

performing 8,000 surgeries. It will need to develop new funding to

continue past 2010.

Though a perhaps doomed prototype, sharing a building with a

garage, LCA shows that animal care in the Taipei region can be

provided in a manner meeting world standards, and that humane

awareness already goes beyond sheltering, to preventing the need for

shelters.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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