ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

 

This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATES and CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS • Rev. 12.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2005

 

 

 

 

 
   
 
powered by FreeFind

ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2006

Animal control changing in China

JINING, NANJING--Chinese animal control edged closer to western methods in midsummer 2006, amid unprecedented but officially encouraged public debate over dog purges conducted in response to rabies outbreaks in Mouding County of Yunnan province, the Jinshan district of Shanghai, and in 14 villages among nine counties in the Jining suburbs.

"I could not believe my ears when I heard that 50,000 dogs were killed, many beaten to death," wrote Shanghai Daily columnist Wong Yong. "Even if rabies was so rampant that vaccination was insufficient, and the dogs had to be exterminated, the authorities could have been more humane and used lethal injection."

Mouding County officials reported killing 54,429 dogs, among a human population of 200,000, after 357 people were bitten during June and July, including three who died of rabies.

The death of a four-year-old child ignited local anger. "Reports in the Chinese news media say that some people out walking their dogs had the animals seized by gangs of vigilantes, who clubbed the dogs to death on the spot," wrote New York Times Shanghai correspondent Howard French.

Mouding County decision makers apparently seized upon the dog pogrom as a way to avoid being blamed themselves for lack of vaccination and inefficient response to dog bites, but the effort backfired. Photos of the killing hit the Internet almost immediately.

"Rabies scares in other parts of China quickly followed," French said. "Chinese news media reported the killings of 280 dogs in Wuxi, near Shanghai, and 13 in Fuzhou, in southern Fujian Province."

The Jinshan and Jining purge tolls were not announced. The New China News Agency reported that the pet dog population of the afflicted villages near Jining was 500,000, among a human population of eight million.

Changes in Chinese domestic policy are rarely announced with fanfare, and the midsummer transition in animal control philosophy was no exception, introduced so subtly that some western news media and animal advocacy groups responded to mid-August publicity about rabies control in Nanjing as if what was happening was more of the same.

But it was very different, as spelled out by Wu Jiao of the state-run China Daily.

"According to the Nanjing Public Security Bureau, which launched the campaign on August 15, " after 11,000 residents sought treatment for dog bites in the preceding six months, "special police officers will be found in public gardens, squares, and major streets to capture and kill wandering dogs who are not with owners," Wu Jiao wrote.

"City regulations that all dogs who enter public areas without a proper reason, such as obtaining medical treatment or participating in a public performance, can be killed by public security bureaus," Wu Jiao continued. "However, officials from the police bureau said the campaign will not kill domestic dogs roaming public places. Instead, owners will receive warnings and fines between $37.50 and $125," exactly as would be done for allowing a dog to be off leash in a public place in most major U.S. cities.

"Already there is concern from animal protectionists," Wu Jiao's second sentence acknowledged, in rare recognition of public dissent.

"Homeless dogs who roam the streets have often already been abused by irresponsible former owners. What we should do is to save them from hunger and provide them with a safe home," Nanjing University student and animal rescuer Yang Xi told Wu Jiao.

The Legal Daily, published by the Politics & Law Committee of the Chinese central government, "blasted the killings as an 'extraordinarily crude, cold-blooded and lazy way for the government to deal with epidemic disease," reported Guardian Beijing correspondent Jonathan Watts.

"Wiping out the dogs shows that the government officials didn't do their jobs right in protecting people from rabies in the first place," the Legal Daily editorialized.

"This is a classic case of lazy government," agreed Lin Weiping of the Beijing Youth Daily. "When local authorities set such an example of barbarity and govern so lazily, what happiness will the common people have to speak of?"

"I think this is completely insane," agreed Beijing Human and Animal Environmental Education Center founder Zhang Luping, to Christopher Bodeen of Associated Press. "What's more, this really damages our national image, and sets a bad example to show how lazy and inconsiderate those local government officials are. "I think this brutal and cold-blooded campaign should stop as soon as possible."

Observed Financial Times Beijing correspondent Mure Dickie, "The government-ordered slaughter spotlighted the changing feelings of ordinary Chinese towards their canine companions, and has exposed the officials behind the killings to unusual criticism. Internet discussion boards have hummed with outrage, and protest has even spilled into state newspapers usually reluctant to criticise government actions directly. The scale of the debate reflects unusual tolerance by government censors, usually quick to shut down media criticism of authorities."

Added French of the New York Times, "Discussion of the issue has surpassed the bounds of a simple conversation about pets' rights, with many commentators sharply questioning a system that could order the mass extermination of dogs, whether or not they are licensed and vaccinated. The reaction of groups and individuals, often through the Internet, also provides a striking illustration of the emergence of true public opinion in China, unmediated by the official press or censors.

"Some drew comparisons with China's human rights situation," French noted. "'We don't have human rights, let alone dog rights,' wrote a commentator going by the name of Kui Kui Xiang Ri, on the Tianya forum. 'It's the local emperors who have their say, and we ordinary folks are not much different from dogs in their eyes.'"

Otfficial coverage of the dog purges took especially rare positive note of organized non-governmental opposition to the status quo--and seized the chance to educate about what should be done instead.

"Fourteen animal protection associations from all over the country wrote letters to protest the Mouding and Jining governments' mass slaughter policy," said the Xinhua News Service. "Dr. Ding Zhengrong, a local epidemic prevention official in Yunnan Province, said if advance measures could be taken to prevent an outbreak of rabies, there would be no mass killing of dogs. "

About 70% of rural Chinese households keep dogs, according to government statistics, but only 3% are vaccinated. "Compulsory vaccination of all dogs is a solution," Ding Zhengrong told Xinhua News.

"He added that some urban families failed to register and vaccinate their dogs because of the expense," Xinhua News continued, noting that the annual licensing and registration cost in Jining is $565.

"Many farmers are reluctant to get shots for their dogs, because it's not always free. The veterinary system at the township level has become inadequate," agreed Guangxi University rabies expert Luo Tingrong. "There isn't much investment in the system."

"If dogs are not vaccinated, that's people's fault, and dogs should not be made to pay for human negligence," tourism official Tang Bing told the Xinhua News Service.

Added journalist Stone Chen, "The mass slaughter of dogs is cold-blooded. Governments should detect dogs with rabies and put them down in a humane manner."

Said China Daily, "A controversial mass slaughter of dogs may not be necessary."

"Rabies is not on the rise overall," pronounced vice health minister Jiang Zuojun, who also "recommended vaccinating dogs rather than mass killings."

As if on cue the Beijing Morning Post announced that Qingdao, a Shandong province seaport, would vaccinate 40,000 dogs during the next 60 days.

China reported 2,651 human rabies deaths in 2004, 2,375 in 2005, and 961 in the first half of 2006--but 623 of the 2006 deaths came in June.

Rabies outbreaks in 2006 and in other recent years have occurred almost entirely in the southern and coastal regions where dogs are bred on large farms for meat and fur --and pets, more and more, as pet acquisition has far eclipsed increases in consumptive use. There are now about 300 million pet dogs in 150 million Chinese homes, according to official estimates, making the pet dog industry more than 30 times larger than dog slaughter.

At least one of the several collective farms that acquired St. Bernards to breed for meat production about eight years ago apparently never actually sold dogs for meat. Greater profits, the managers learned, could be had from western-style "puppy-milling" for the fast-growing Chinese pet trade. Instead of hybridizing the St. Bernards with traditional "meat dogs," the farm diversified into producing other popular purebreds.

"Beijing is cleaning up its dog breeding farms in the wake of several rabies outbreaks in other parts of the country," the Xinhua News Service reported on August 12. "The Beijing Municipal Agriculture Bureau will inspect breeders and check the registration of pet dogs. The public security department will adopt homeless animals," the article said, but added that a spokesperson did not say what would be done with dogs who are not adopted.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau opened the city animal control shelter to the public for reclaim of lost dogs, introduced an adoption program, and began accepting volunteer help in October 2003, after moving to attractive new premises, Association for Small Animal Protection founder Betty Zhao e-mailed to ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Beijing had 60,000 reported dog bite cases in the first half of 2006, but human rabies deaths in recent years have all been among recent arrivals from the rabies-endemic regions. Beijing officials often purged dogs from 1949 to March 2001, when 1,600 unlicensed dogs were reportedly taken from their keepers and killed, after a series of vigilante poisonings. Vigilantes killed dogs in Beijing during the 2003 Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome panic, but the official response was merely to pick up strays. And abandonees.

Beijing is among the relatively few Chinese cities with a western-style animal control agency. Keeping pet dogs was officially discouraged for most of 50 years, strays were often killed on sight by police, and enforcing registration and vaccination requirements-- where any existed--was left to local ad hoc committees. Instead of having a standing animal control department that collects strays all year, killing dogs largely beyond public notice, Chinese cities have sporadically drafted untrained and ill-equipped public employees and volunteers to kill dogs.

"In Dongling, on the outskirts of Jingling in Shandong province, teams of men beat dogs to death with wooden poles and pitchforks, then trucked away their bodies," villagers told Associated Press.

In Mouding County the dog-killers arrived in darkness, banged pans and set off fireworks, then beat to death with mop handles the dogs whose barking revealed their presence, said Los Angeles Times staff writer Ching-Ching Ni.

"The only dogs spared were military and police canines," Ni wrote. "For each dead animal, owners were compensated 60 cents.
"Before the massacre began, authorities gave dog owners a chance to do the dirty work themselves," Ni continued. "Xu Jiajin, a 70-year-old farmer, said his village had about 90 families and more than 100 dogs. The villagers were told the dogs had to be killed by July 27." Under duress, Xu's family hanged their dog.

"To prevent any dogs from leaving town, authorities set up checkpoints on all major roads. Any dogs found in vehicles were subject to immediate execution," Ni added.

"County residents interviewed by phone said the killing appeared indiscriminate. They said about 4,000 dogs already vaccinated against rabies were among those slaughtered, because of the slight chance they could spread the disease."

China leads the world in agricultural vaccine use, but vaccine quality control has been problematic, as production has expanded much faster than official monitoring capacity. Purported anti-H5N1 vaccines produced by substandard labs have in some cases been suspected of actually spreading the disease, or causing mutations that make it more virulent.


Outright fraud is also frequent.


"Last year, two boys in Guangdong died of rabies, against which their parents thought they had been inoculated," recalled Watts of the Guardian. "Police then found 40,000 boxes of fake vaccine."

However, Chinese confidence in vaccination has rapidly risen as result of the largely successful efforts in recent years to contain SARS and the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Both diseases are more broadly distributed in China than anywhere else, and both crossed into humans in the Guangdong region of southern China, long notorious for unsanitary and inhumane "wet markets" where both wild and domestic live animals are sold.

However, prompt response to H5N1 outbreaks with "ring vaccination" had through August 20, 2006 held the number of mainland Chinese human cases down to just 21, with 14 deaths. Both Vietnam and Indonesia have had more than four times as many human deaths.

"Ring vaccination" consists of intensively vaccinating the potential hosts of a disease in the territory surrounding an outbreak. Potentially exposed host animals within the ring are usually killed, in agricultural applications, since blood tests usually cannot distinguish vaccinated animals from those carrying latent infections, but the killing is minimized by preventing further disease transmission.

The Chinese vaccine industry is believed to be capable of accelerating rabies vaccine production to serve the entire dog population within the next few years. --M.C.