Taiwan: Activists point to widespread animal abuse

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Published on TaipeiTimes

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2005/03/27/2003248014

 

Activists point to widespread animal abuse

 

Taiwan has some of the world's most comprehensive laws covering the

treatment of animals, but the actual enforcement of these laws is another

matter entirely

By Gavin Phipps, STAFF REPORTER

Sunday, Mar 27, 2005,Page 17

 

Ask anyone on the street their views regarding the need for animal welfare

and chances are a vast majority will, on moral or religious grounds, have

strong opinions in favor of treating animals with the same respect as

humans. Despite this, animal abuse remains an unavoidable fact of life in

Taiwan.

 

Chickens are inhumanely slaughtered in public at wet markets, the sale of

dog meat continues, traditional Chinese medicine stores continue to sell

parts of endangered animals, and take a stroll down Taipei's infamous Snake

Alley on any given day and the sight of snakes awaiting their slaughter is

inescapable.

 

With such widespread abuse, the public could be forgiven for supposing the

nation is void of any laws governing the welfare of the nation's non-human

inhabitants. In reality, however, Taiwan has some of the world's most

comprehensive laws governing the treatment of animals.

 

When the government implemented the Animal Protection Law in November 1998,

Taiwan became only the 54th country to introduce laws pertaining to the

welfare of animals.

 

Recently captured stray dogs, above, at a shelter in Taipei await the

attention of a veterinary surgeon. A sick brown bear, below, at Kaohsiung's

Shoushan Zoo is shown in a photo taken covertly by activists.

 

The Animal Protection Law covers the treatment of all animals, domestic,

wild and livestock. Laws cover everything from maltreatment and abandonment

to the use of animals in gambling and even the age of those who can legally

be held responsible for the well being of a domestic animal. Fines against

those who flout the rules range from NT$2,000 to NT$2500,000, and in certain

cases abuses can lead to imprisonment.

 

Yet while Taiwan has such comprehensive laws, many of them only exist on

paper. The actual enforcement of the laws is another matter entirely. The

Council of Agriculture (COA, ÐÐÕþÔºÞr˜I•þ) works tirelessly to enforce the

law, but with a mere six full-time animal inspectors employed to cover the

whole of Taipei City and its environs and with even fewer to monitor other

areas, it's hardly surprising that little gets done.

 

" They have some of the best laws in the world, but they simply don't enforce

them and there are certainly not enough inspectors to do the job, " said the

International Primate Protection League's (IPPL) Taiwan field

representative, Charles Shuttleworth. " When the police do act they do a very

a good job indeed, but they could do a lot more. "

 

One of the first foreign nationals to take a vocal interest in animal

welfare in Taiwan, Shuttleworth has been at the forefront of animal

conservation since 1969. And while he feels that a lot more could be done to

ensure that animals are protected, he has seen some remarkable changes over

the past 30 years.

 

" It used to be terrible. People would chop limbs off animals while they were

still alive. People would put monkeys in cages and leave them out in the sun

because they believed it would make [monkeys] smaller and cuter, " he said.

" I even saw a man put a tube up a crocodile's [anus], blow air into it and

then jump on the creature so it would make what he considered to be a funny

sound. "

 

Horrific abuses such as these may still take place, but they are kept a long

way from the public's gaze. Like Shuttleworth, veterinary surgeon and

Secretary General of the Animal Protection Association of the Republic of

China (APA, ÖÐÈAÃñ‡ø±£×o„ÓÎï…f•þ), Huang Ching-rong (üS‘c˜s), has also

witnessed a lot of positive changes in the way people view animals in Taiwan

over the years.

 

" I remember when animal rights first became an issue in the 1960s. It all

started with the water buffalo. Farmers were so fed up with their cattle

roaming onto roads only to be hit by cars that they petitioned the

government to dig ditches at the sides of roads to stop their cattle from

being killed, " Huang said.

 

According to Huang, there are so many loopholes in the laws that individuals

who harm animals are rarely, if ever, prosecuted for the correct reasons.

 

" You could kill a dog, dump the body in the street, and chances are you'd be

charged with the unlawful disposal of garbage rather than the killing of a

domestic animal, " said Huang. " And you only have to look at the huge number

of feral dogs roaming the streets to realize that fines for abandonment

don't work at all. "

 

The issue of feral dogs has long been the most publicized of all

animal-welfare issues. The law currently states than any dog found without a

collar or identification chip should be held in a shelter for 10 days. If

the animal remains unclaimed after this period it can then be legally put to

sleep by lethal injection. Some pounds ignore this regulation, however, and

for financial reasons put dogs down after only four or five days.

 

Animal rights groups like the Life Conservationist Association (LCA, êP‘ÑÉú

Ãü…f•þ) are against the slaughter of any animal, but it is not only the act

of putting dogs to sleep that has them appalled. The manner in which many

dogs are put down is contrary to legal guidelines, they say.

 

" The dog pounds contract out the task of injecting the dogs to private

contractors. Sure, there might be a trained vet among them, but this is not

always the case, " said the LCA's Hank Lee (ÀîÜŠh).

 

" A lot of dogs get injected in the incorrect part of their anatomy by

inexperienced handlers. Instead of a relatively painless and quick death

these dogs often suffer horrendously before finally dying. "

 

While the feral-dog problem continues to cause debate and will, according to

the LCA's Lee, " quite possibly get worse before it gets better, " one of the

most vocal of all of Taiwan's animal rights groups, the Environment and

Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST, ̨ž³„ÓÎïÉç•þÑо¿•þ) has enjoyed great

success in its campaign to clean up the way in which the nation's

slaughterhouses operate.

 

Every year 300 million chickens, 31 million ducks, 10 million pigs, 6

million geese, 364,000 turkeys, 260,000 goats and roughly 40,000 cows are

slaughtered in order to satisfy the nation's craving for meat. A majority of

these animals are slaughtered in one of the 80 carefully monitored

government-run abattoirs, but others are not so lucky and are killed at

private slaughterhouses that still practice inhumane methods of animal

slaughter.

 

" Until four years ago nearly every slaughterhouse disregarded the law, " said

EAST's Director, Wu Hung (Îòãü).

 

" Pigs had their feet bound to stop them from walking in order to make the

meat richer. Cows were starved of food and force-fed water for three to four

days before slaughter in order to make them heavier and chickens were often

put into feathering machines still alive, " he said.

 

On his once-regular visits to abattoirs, Wu not only witnessed pre-slaughter

abuse, but also saw the inhumane methods employed by slaughterhouse workers

to kill the animals. Pigs, cows, chickens and goats were often slain by

having their throats cut and were rarely, if ever stunned and put to sleep

beforehand.

 

EAST's awareness campaign caused such a commotion and had such an effect on

the general public that the COA was finally forced to act.

 

" We were very concerned about the way in which slaughterhouses were being

run, " said the COA's Andrew Wang (ÍõÖÒË¡). " We now have 300 inspectors who

visit and monitor slaughterhouses to ensure that they are both hygienic and

employ humane methods of slaughter. "

 

By law, all abattoirs must now first stun an animal with an electric prod

and, when the animal is asleep, fire a single shot from a bolt gun into the

beast's head. Slaughterhouses found to employ inhumane practices now face

fines from NT$100 to NT$500,000. The COA also has the right to close

operations of any slaughterhouse that openly or continually flouts the

regulations.

 

The COA may be confident that it has eradicated inhumane practices of animal

slaughter, but EAST is not convinced. Since it's campaign made headline

news, the animal-rights group has been denied access to nearly all of the

nation's slaughterhouses. And, according to the group, it is quite possible

that 60 percent of pigs are still being killed inhumanely.

 

Local animal-rights groups may remain wary of how the government deals with

laws pertaining to the rights of domestic and farm animals, but one area in

which the NGOs and the government have successfully worked together is that

of outlawing the capture and sale of indigenous wildlife, especially

primates.

 

Until the late 1980s the sight of illegally imported orangutans and local

primates was commonplace. But Taiwan's inclusion in the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)

has reduced the once-widespread importation of endangered animals.

 

On a more local scale, the opening of the Pingtung Rescue Center for

Endangered and Wild Animals in 1993 enabled authorities to place any

illegally imported animal into proper care. Since its opening, the center

has rescued more than 1,000 animals and now participates in educational

exchange programs with institutes overseas.

 

" The media attention given to the CITES agreement and the opening of the

Pintung Rescue Center have been pivotal in altering people's concepts of how

we view and treat endangered animals, " said Huang.

 

" Without them Taiwan would not have made such great inroads in the area of

animal welfare, " he said.

 

The sale and importation of primates may have successfully been stemmed, but

the plight of the Formosan macaque has now taken center stage. While no

longer critically endangered, the Formosan macaque remains, according to the

World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Animals, at risk of

extinction in the wild in the medium-term future. Every year dozens of them

are killed or maimed by wire snares and poisons laid out by hunters.

 

" There is not and never has been a government regulation on the number of

macaques that can be caught and moved, and if there was I'm sure the farmers

would complain, " said Lee Ling-ling (ÀîÁáÁá) of the Department of Zoology at

National Taiwan University (̨ž³´óŒW„ÓÎïŒWϵ). " Until some kind of legal

framework can be settled upon, it's a no-win situation for everybody

concerned, " Lee added.

 

Once hunted solely for its bones, which were boiled down into a broth and

drunk by young men who believed the concoction would give them everlasting

virility, the trapping of macaques was outlawed in 1989. While it is illegal

to slaughter macaques, even trespassing ones, farmers can apply for a permit

to trap the primates. The unlicensed killing of a macaque is punishable with

a lengthy prison sentence or a hefty fine or both, depending on the

circumstances.