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OCTOBER 2003

Hong Kong evicts big dogs from public housing

HONG KONG--The Hong Kong Housing Authority on September 25, 2003 approved new rules, recommended by the regional government, that will ban from public housing any dogs weighing more than 40 pounds and any dogs acquired after August 1.

Possession of the dogs prior to August 1 must be verified by licensing, vaccination, or sterilization certificates. All dogs must be licensed, vaccinated, sterilized, and registered with the Housing Authority by the end of November.

 

Dogs will be excluded from elevators from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m., and will be evicted if they occasion two verified complaints.Pigeons, wildlife, and domesticated farm animals remain excluded, as under the previous regulations. Cats, cage birds, rabbits, turtles, and fish continue to be permitted.

About 30% of Hong Kong residents live in public housing. Heatedly debated since May, the new rules represent the first significant update of the Housing Authority provisions pertaining to animals in 40 years, Hong Kong legislator David Chu Yu-lin told the Asia for Animals conference in early September.

 

The original rules, Chu Yu-lin said, were written to address problems with peasants resettled from land expropriated for government projects in the New Territories, who were given apartments to replace their former homesteads, and would arrive with all their pigs, chickens, and sometimes goats.

 

Problems with dogs, Chu Yu-lin added, were never anticipated, because few Hong Kong residents kept dogs in those days. The Housing Authority proposed banning all pets in May, at the height of the SARS panic, but scaled back the ban under sustained criticism from the Hong Kong SPCA and the Hong Kong Veterinary Association. Local singing star Karen Mok Man-wai recorded a song protesting the ban, authored by her brother Trevor Mok.

 

Hong Kong Dog Lovers' Group president Ivy Chan told the South China Morning Post that a survey of 16 veterinarians found that 34 dogs and 17 cats had been killed at request of their keepers from fear that the keepers would be evicted.

 

Amid the debate, the Hong Kong SPCA reported a decrease of 15% in the number of healthy homeless animals it killed in the year since it began phasing out animal control duties, along with an increase of 250 in adoptions. What that meant overall, however, was unclear because statistics were not available from the Agriculture, Fisheries, and Conservation Department, which now has the primary responsibility for animal control.

 

The transition out of animal control, organizing the Asia for Animals conference, and contesting the new Housing Authority rules took a toll on the Hong Kong SPCA, including the March resignation of executive director Chris Hanselman and the September exit of his successor, Winnie Sek Wai-yu. Veterinarian Pauline Taylor, who served as interim director between Hanselman and Sek Wai-yu, was named new executive director on September 10.