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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: January/February 2007

Chinese president Hu Jintao halts canine confiscations

 

BEIJING--Chinese President Hu Jintao in late November 2006 personally "intervened to end a national crackdown on dogs," reported Jane Cai of the South China Morning Post, who made the action known to the world on December 13.

"One petitioner said Mr. Hu's chief secretary told her that the president had read her two petitions, signed by more than 60,000 people, calling for an end to the campaign," Cai wrote. "She said Mr. Hu was unhappy about the complaints and international media coverage of the campaign, and had put a stop to the program late last month," about four weeks after it started. "A government official confirmed Mr Hu had ordered a halt after reading the letters," Cai continued.

Hu's order most directly affected a round-up of unlicensed and large dogs underway in Beijing since the end of October, but followed almost a year of global petitioning and e-mailing in response to dog massacres undertaken earlier in response to rabies outbreaks in the southern and coastal regions of China--mostly in the areas where dogs are often eaten.

Word of Hu's intervention trickled out after the Beijing Public Security Bureau "took several dozen Chinese and foreign journalists to inspect a dog pound on the outskirts of the city where some 600 abandoned, oversized, and confiscated dogs are housed," reported Alexa Olesen of Associated Press. "The tour was an apparent attempt to ease public anger over the campaign," observed Olesen.
Animals Asia Foundation founder Jill Robinson and Grace Gabriel, Asia director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, acknowledged on December 20 that the dog confiscations had officially stopped.

Gabriel said IFAW learned that the confiscations were suspended from the Beijing Police Department on December 7.

"Four days later," Gabriel added, "on December 11th, animal welfare groups and the international and local media were invited to tour the police pound. Although IFAW has obtained pictures of impounded animals in the past, access has been restricted for the past eight years," Gabriel alleged, contradicting reports ANIMAL PEOPLE has received from the Beijing Small Animal Protection Association, which started a volunteer program at the pound in October 2003, and has sent several photos of volunteers grooming dogs.

"It was apparent that the pound had recently been renovated," Gabriel said. "The facility was barren, but comparable to shelters elsewhere. Many dogs wore collars and tags, indicating that they had been owned.

"IFAW urged the police to return the owned dogs to their rightful homes," Gabriel said. "We fully accept they would want to impose conditions on registration and vaccination, and that those who don't comply with spaying and neutering may be fined. However, the return of many of these dogs is not possible under the current regulations because they represent breeds banned by the Beijing Dog Regulation, or because they exceed the size limit [of 35 millimeters in height] set by the authorities."
Robinson agreed that the Beijing pound was "of acceptable standards. However, obviously this is not an acceptable solution following such a reactive confiscation," Robinson said, "and we continue to ask for an amnesty in order that these dogs are returned to their owners, to be muzzled in public areas, with humane muzzles we are donating, whilst new regulations are implemented. The regulations as they stand are seriously flawed by limiting the size of dogs rather than the breed," although some large breeds are completely prohibited, "and this too needs to be addressed," Robinson said.

To Lindsay Beck of Reuters, Robinson added, "The regulations have been in place since 2003, and the government has to take some responsibility for the fact that they've been ignored. There are pet shops and pet markets everywhere selling large dogs, and no one has cracked down [before]," Robinson claimed.

Vaccination

The Beijing dog law enforcement drive began after more than six months of dog massacres amid rabies panics in the regions afflicted with rabies. So-called "meat dogs" are not vaccinated, and relatively few pets are vaccinated outside of Beijing, which claims a vaccination compliance rate of about 50%. But killing as many as 50,000 dogs in the vicinity of some rabies outbreaks has not stopped the spread of the disease.

Reports that up to 17% of vaccinated dogs in China may still be susceptible to rabies have caused officials to re-examine the manufacture and sale of fake and ineffective vaccines, a recurring problem. Police in 2005 found 40,000 boxes of fake rabies vaccine in Guangdong, for example, after two boys died of rabies despite receiving prompt post-exposure inoculations.

The State Food & Drug Administration on December 14, 2006 announced a renewed effort to stop the makers and distributors of fake vaccines.

"The official Xinhua news agency said that sub-standard rabies vaccines had been responsible for several deaths recently. It did not elaborate," summarized Reuters.

The Ministry of Health announced earlier that "Rabies killed more people in China than any other infectious disease for the 6th consecutive month in November 2006," Reuters said. "There were 270 deaths caused by rabies in November 2006, out of 743 deaths due to infectious disease on the Chinese mainland, according to the Ministry of Health. In all, 354 people were reportedly bitten by rabid animals, the Ministry said."