China sets strict rules on rabies-related dog killing
It is hard to feel very reassured by the words of the spokesman for China’s Ministry of Health, but let’s hope that the government will indeed be prudent before it issues orders to kill dogs in a rabies epidemic. Rabies is a problem in China, that is indisputable. However, in the past, the government has killed tens of thousands of dogs in response to rabies outbreaks. The New York Times reported that some 54,000 dogs were killed in Yunnan Province in the summer of 2006. (“A Chinese Outcry: Doesn’t a Dog Have Rights?” Howard W. French, August 10, 2006.)
“It was late last month, the boy said, his voice still tinged with emotion, when he and his father were forced to march their two German shepherds to a public square and hang them from a tree.
“The boy, Xia Shaoli, was not alone in his pain. Officials in Mouding County in southwestern Yunnan Province had ordered the mass extermination of dogs, pets as well as strays, after three people died in a rabies outbreak. And as a crowd gathered around a large tree in the village of Xiajiashan, owners complied one after another with commands to string their dogs up.”
Dogs being walked were seized from their owners and beaten to death on the spot, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported. Led by the county police chief, killing teams entered villages at night creating noise to get dogs barking, then beat the animals to death, the reports said.
Owners were offered 63 cents per animal to kill their own dogs before the teams were sent in, according to the reports. Only military guard dogs and canine police units were spared during the violence.
It should be noted that the Times’ article reports that rabies is a severe problem in China. Nationwide, 961 people died of the disease in the first six months of 2006, and 2,545 people died in 2005. By contrast, rabies deaths in most Western countries are extremely rare.
According to the Times, “Experts say the persistence of the disease reflects the breakdown of the rural health care system, once one of the proudest achievements of Chinese Communism. Many poor rural provinces view canine rabies vaccinations as a costly burden. Meanwhile, an oral vaccine, which is far easier to administer, is not imported, partly because of its cost.”
“’Many farmers are reluctant to get shots for their dogs, because it’s not always free, whereas the veterinary system at the township level has become very inadequate,’ said Luo Tingrong, a rabies expert at Guangxi University. ‘There isn’t much investment into the system.’”
An Associated Press story reported that only three percent of dogs in China are vaccinated against rabies, according to the Chinese Center of Disease Control and Prevention.
Nevertheless, mass extermination of dogs is not the answer. Even the World Health Organization addressed the issue and said that the government needed to place more emphasis on rabies prevention.
Dog extermination programs were a regular feature of life in Communist China from the 1950s through the 1970s. In “It’s A Dog’s Life,” by Pallavi Aiyar, printed in the January 31, 2006, issue of China Business, he writes, “Canines were seen as a threat to public hygiene and were routinely executed by mobs. Even the new China of glittering malls and Starbucks coffee shops hasn’t completely rid itself of such tendencies. During the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic of mid-2003, for example, unfounded fears that dogs might be carriers of the virus led to hundreds of animals being rounded up off the streets and put to death.”
He goes on to relate the experience of one devoted pet owner: “Li Huan Lan, 47, recalled, eyes wide with terror, how during the SARS scare she had to keep her beloved Pekinese Bao Ber indoors at all times, fearing that were he to be caught outside, she would be forced to give him up. ‘I used to let him out for just a few minutes so he could go to the bathroom, and sometimes even if he hadn’t had time to do his business, I had to rush him back into the house,’ she said.”
In addition to health fears, real or imagined, the dog’s position in Chinese life is further complicated by its traditional role as food, something totally alien to Westerners. “Juliana Liu, a journalist with Reuters in Beijing, looked back 15 years and remembered how her childhood pet dog mysteriously disappeared, only to reappear later as dinner. The dog had been given to the family as a present and was considered too expensive to maintain. Eating it was just more practical.” There are still more than 100 restaurants in Beijing that serve dog meat.
Aiyar writes, “Dogs are at present caught somewhere in an awkward middle ground between man’s best friend and a comforting soup. It’s a common sight to see pampered, manicured pooches frolicking with their doting owners just a few meters away from a restaurant where diners chow down on stewed dog meat.”
Elene Locke, of Hong Kong, said, “In China it’s still not easy being a dog. Even people who own pets sometimes see no problem with eating them.”
All dogs must have a license. In Beijing the fee for this license was originally $600, followed by an additional yearly registration fee of $250. Since late 2003, the initial registration has been reduced to $120 and the annual fee to $8. More than 40 categories of dogs including Dalmatians, terriers, Collies and Labradors remain illegal to own, as they are deemed “dangerous” by city authorities because of their size. Moreover, in a manner similar to the one-child policy, Beijing imposes a one-dog policy whereby each family is restricted to ownership of a single canine.
According to the market research firm Euromonitor International, the percentage of dog owners in China increased from 5% in 1999 to 15% in 2004. The company estimates that dog- and cat-food sales in 2004 reached 1.6 billion yuan (US$198.5 million), a hefty increase of some 13% over the previous year. While small in scale compared with the market in developed countries, Euromonitor is bullish on the mainland’s growth potential for pet-care products, predicting that the pet population will continue to increase strongly over the next five years.
That’s good news, as long as attitudes toward dogs continue to change and people view them more as pets and less as food. However, the Chinese government seems to view dogs in the same way it views livestock or poultry. The typical reaction to a suspected health problem in chickens, for example, has been to slaughter millions of birds.
The issue of dog extermination in China is much larger than what is happening in one district. This is a policy from the top of the government down. The Chinese government took similar actions in 2001 in Beijing when the International Olympic Committee was deciding on the host city for the 2008 Olympic Games. Toronto, Paris and Beijing were the finalists.
Already under fire from animal-lovers for its position on dogs raised as food, in July 2001, Beijing began the slaughter of all stray and unlicensed dogs in the city. Seemingly, Chinese officials wished to make a good impression on IOC officials by not having any stray dogs loose in the city. This attempt at animal control should not be confused with typical Western methods. Here is a description from a reporter for the UK’s Scotsman Online:
“City officials are rounding up and exterminating dogs and closing down local vegetable markets to ensure that no unsavoury image of the Chinese capital is transmitted in the run-up to tomorrow’s decision.
“Since the final push for the Games was launched, police have stepped up patrols that seize dogs from owners. Often the animals have to be wrested from their owners’ arms before being taken to pounds where they are put down.
“Sometimes the dogs are thrown into a sack by the inspection squad and bludgeoned to death before the horrified owners’ eyes.”
Ironically, Chinese newspapers roundly criticized Paris as a possible choice for the Olympic Games because of the city’s dog-friendly attitude, allowing dogs to wander freely and to enter restaurants and hotels. The Chinese Liberation Daily newspaper ran an article under the headline: “Mad dogs run wild in the street. Paris must handle its dogs before hosting the games.”
As we all know, the IOC did choose Beijing to host the 2008 Olympic Games. If past and current behavior is any indication, I think we can only expect Chinese officials to step up the extermination of dogs between now and the time of the Olympic Games next year.
It’s not possible to estimate how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of dogs have already been killed unnecessarily in China in recent years. Rabies can and should be controlled by vaccination. With China’s ever-rising prosperity, the country should be able to plan and carry out a successful vaccination campaign, even in rural areas.
As far as the Olympic Games are concerned, I think we can expect to see Chinese officials trying to eliminate as many stray and “dangerous” (i.e., medium and large) dogs as possible because they somehow think this makes the country look better to the outside world.
If something is to be done to protest what the Chinese government is doing regarding its dog population, I would suggest contacting some of the major Olympic sponsors for the Games. Most of these corporations are U.S.- or Western-based. If enough people contacted them about the Chinese government’s treatment of dogs, perhaps they would have something to say. I don’t think any Western corporation wants to be linked to dog extermination or the horrors described in some of these news reports. Perhaps they could try to discourage the barbaric way the Chinese government has been tackling its problems.
Major Sponsors of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics
Kodak
Coca-Cola
Samsung
General Motors
Xerox
Heineken
Fuji Film
Telstra
Schlumberger
John Hancock
Panasonic
TimeWarner
Visa
Here’s the latest story from China:
China sets strict rules on rabies-related dog killing
www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-12 19:17:34BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) — A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Health (MOH) said here on Monday that government authorities would be prudent in issuing orders to kill dogs in a rabies epidemic.
“When medical experts judge that an epidemic has become very severe and constitutes a threat to many people, killing dogs is an important measure to safeguard health and contain the epidemic,” said spokesman Mao Qun’an.
“But this measure should be adopted in a prudent way,” he said at a regular press conference, noting the killing mainly targeted sick dogs and stray dogs.
He said raising pets in line with the law is a citizen’s right, but dog owners should take steps to prevent rabies to protect their own health and that of their neighbors.
Mao was commenting on media reports that some local governments had slaughtered dogs after rabies cases were found.
MOH statistics show that from January to October, 2,717 rabies cases were reported on the Chinese mainland, up 2.41 percent in the same period a year earlier.
Areas severely affected by rabies included Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan and Guangdong provinces, Mao said.
“Most rabies cases were found in rural areas,” he said, identifying that the Bijie area in northwest Guizhou province, Guigang in southeast Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Nanchong in northeast Sichuan province were the top three prefectural-level cities affected by the disease.
Mao said the occurrence of rabies was rising in China, particularly since 2000. Between 2004 to 2006, rabies had claimed 8,403 lives in the country, accounting for 30.1 percent of the total deaths from infectious diseases in the same time period.
He said rabies was found in 910 counties in 23 provinces in 2007compared to 98 counties in 1996.
With more dogs being raised in China, many have not been vaccinated leading to the rabies increase. Some people had also refused to be vaccinated after they were bitten by dogs leading to a natural increase in rabies occurrences. Such problems were particularly serious in rural areas.
Mao said the MOH would pay more attention to the prevention and control of rabies in rural areas in the coming years and ensure rabies vaccines were fully supplied in such areas.
Rabies is an acute viral infection that is nearly always fatal if left untreated. It can be transmitted by the bite of an infected animal, usually a dog. It kills about 50,000 people around the world annually.
