We've gotten pretty used to the idea that if H5N1 appears in birds it is legitimate to slaughter birds wholesale within a certain distance of the infected flock. In the west, birds are kept as caged pets by some people but not huge numbers. In Indonesia and other countries, however, birds are the kinds of companion animals that dogs and cats are here. Keep that in mind when you consider this story.
In southwest China three people have died from rabies after being bitten by dogs. Rabies is a pretty bad disease. Once you start exhibiting symptoms it is essentially a death warrant (yes, I know there have been two survivors described but they are great rarities and were the subject of heroic intensive care efforts). If the Chinese attitude towards dogs were the same as ours towards birds, they'd institute a mass cull of dogs. And that's what they did:
A county in southwestern China has killed as many as 50,000 dogs in a government-ordered campaign following the deaths of three local people from rabies.
The five-day massacre in Yunnan province's Mouding county that ended on Sunday spared only military guard dogs and police canine units, the Shanghai Daily reported, citing local media.
Dogs being walked were taken from their owners and beaten to death on the spot, it said.
Other killing teams entered villages at night creating noise to get dogs barking, then homing in on their prey. Owners were offered five yuan (34p) per animal to kill their own dogs before the teams were sent in, it said. (AOL News)
Mrs. R. might get rid of me for five yuan, but to get our dog they'd have to bring in the artillery and dispatch her first.
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Damn bastards.
Our house is home to a golden retriever (Jack) and a Congo African grey parrot (Nelson). They are equally very dear to me.
I am so glad my cats are indoor cats, cos when H5N1 hits my area, I don't want them to be killed by random idiots in my city.
yeah - my wife & I have had dogs for years - they try to beat my dogs to death with a stick and they would find they should not bring a stick to a gun fight :-)
What do you expect from the Chinese?
I have never been so horrified as I was on my visit to China, walking through an open air market and seeing a butcher with kittens caged, ready to be beheaded and carved up for meat.
And I'm a dog guy.
You wrote: "Mrs. R. might get rid of me for five yuan."
If things get bad, tell Mrs. R. to put you on EBay. I'm sure you will go for WAY more than five yuan!
Path Forward,
Don't forget to include shipping and handling!
Heartless and unforgivable....
Anyone coming after my cats or my dogs will do it over my dead body. And I promise I'll take out as many as I can before I hit the ground. As to mandatory culling of my chickens should H5N1 hit close to home, OK, maybe I wouldn't fight to the death on that one although I am pretty attached to them. But I'll kill them all myself - mercifully and out of eyesight of the live ones - before I'd let someone take them away and gas them or crush them alive. Equally heartless and unforgivable.
Good riddance; dogs are no better than overgrown rats.
The link goes to a different article.
What a miserable place China must be to live in. You are only allowed one kid, and if that kid is female you might well have to 'euthanize' her for economic reasons and hope the next one is a boy. Then they come and brutally kill your dog.
When there is talk of the sheer numbers of people in China being able to overwhelm any other forces, I can't help but think many of them couldn't be counted on. By and large they are people with the same feelings as us. If someone killed my dog then ordered me to fight for them I wouldn't be stupid enough to refuse, but let's just say I wouldn't exactly be trustworthy.
And Roman - it's nice to see that you are in agreement for a change ;-)
But why didn't they just vaccinate the dogs? Would have been easier. And probably cheaper, too. HWho paid for the expences of getting rid of bodies?
I actually understand that article, but I grew up fairly rural in an area with a bad endemic rabies problem (so bad, in fact, that people put out rabies vaccine baits for the local wildlife). It really wasn't uncommon for people I knew to have to kill random wild animals -- one woman was cornered in her barn by a rabid fox and killed it with a pitchfork.
In the early stages of rabies, you can't tell if an animal is rabid, so we all learnt young to avoid wild or obviously feral animals. It used to be the only way you could tell for sure that an animal was rabid was to kill it, cut the head off, and send it for testing, and it wouldn't surprise me if China's technology is no better.
I can definitely understand people panicking and culling dogs, especially if there is no regular programme of rabies vaccination there (and I suspect there isn't). I think it's very sad and it's a horrible reminder of the kind of brutality scared people can perpetrate on each other and their environment (as if we need any more effing reminders), but not unexpected...
I have been reporting about animal welfare in China since September 1970, including as a regular part of my fulltime news beat since 1992. Of importance in understanding the most recent dog massacre is understanding the regional and political history of dog-keeping. Dogs have been eaten in southern and coastal China since circa 1350, almost entirely in Cantonese-speaking areas, spreading into Mandarin-speaking areas mainly north of North Korea. Mandarin-speakers otherwise rarely eat dogs. From 1949 until under 10 years ago, the Communist government actively discouraged keeping dogs as pets, because of Mao Tse Tung's view that dogs were parasites. Dog pogroms were common all over China. Post-Mao, however, keeping dogs as pets because so popular, perhaps because of the one-child family policy leaving vacancies in homes, that China now has more pet dogs than any other nation, and a higher rate of keeping dogs as pets than any nations except the U.S. and Costa Rica (almost twice as high a rate, per household, as Britain and France.) Unfortunately, access to anti-rabies vaccination and education about vaccination and good practices in dog-keeping have not grown with the dog population. Further, many public officials retain the old anti-dog perspectives of the Mao years. Finally, there is an intense cultural conflict in the southern part of China, around Guangdong, the hub of both dog-eating and cat-eating, between the pet-keepers and the dog and cat eaters. Often local governments are involved in operating huge dog and cat farms that produce dogs and cats for meat. These animals are not vaccinated against rabies because of the belief that vaccinated animals are not safe to eat. The dog and cat meat industries, which are just a fraction the size of the Chinese pet industry now, but are politically well-entrenched, feel intensely threatened by the growth of pro-animal opinion and the likelihood that eventually dog-eating and cat-eating will be banned. (Polls have shown majority disapproval of these practices for about eight years now.) Rabies outbreaks serve the interest of the dog and cat meat industry by giving the local governments a pretext to crack down hard on pet-keeping. Meanwhile, though this latest dog pogrom involved pets, it should be noted that several other recent pogroms did involve killing every dog on farms that had rabes outbreaks. There are many indications that the Chinese central government in Beijing is becoming fed up with the problems associated with raising dogs and cats en masse for slaughter, and may be looking for ways to phase it out. Among the most telling of these indications are the openness of exposure and criticism of the most recent massacre--a marked contrast with how this sort of thing was handled only a few years ago, when word of dog pogroms reached us only through back-door channels.
Rabies and dog pogroms are one matter for discussion;the METHOD however of killing the dogs in China is quite another and this is what really burns me.The ghastly cruelty of these various methods(and I have read of them)beggars cultural tolerance and,quite frankly,belief.I am looking at my old hound snoozing on the bed as I write this and wonder how little humanity there is in so many humans..
af and others: Yes, it's horrific to contemplate as dog lovers (includes us). But it isn't just the Chinese. I don't know what you had for dinner, but a visit to a US slaughterhouse is not a beautiful picture. If you use the word pogrom for this, then the slaughterhouse is a Death Camp (I prefer not to use either but several commenters did so I think the analogy is in order). A US slaughterhouse is nothing but a gigantic industrial killing machine operating an a vast scale and with little regard for human killing.
This isn't a defense of what they are doing in this area of China. It is an indictment of what we do.
Hells Bells Revere. Dont they have vaccination programs? I am sure its less than 5 yuan to vaccinate and simply dropping it by plane also vaccinates the local equivalent of skunks, raccoons, free range dogs. I read there was one heck of a lot of infections in China in the last year, but beating someones dog to death is a time and motion thing. Has to be less expensive. Besides they didnt go after the cats....
Bet this gets more press than Hezbollah getting pounded into the ground.
Well said revere!
I was in disbelief after coming across all these comments, thinking what a bunch of hypocrites! Vegetarians excluded of course.
It's unfortunate that revere's comments "birds are the kinds of companion animals that dogs and cats are here" didn't resonate stronger in everyone. That is, try to understand things from a different viewpoint.
But alas, I guess to many of you the millions of birds killed in the name of H5N1 can't compare to a single dog or cat.
BTW, I eat meat.
I'm not 100% convinced that the dogs were culled for rabies, although I know it's a serious problem. Just think that somehow, H5N1 is involved.
If I get any more paranoid, I'll be able to work for Oliver Stone.
Here we go again..the old hypocrite vs vegetarian argument.Per.lease!! only extremists need apply! etc.For all the intelligent minds that will be changed by taking such a stark proposition literally, we may as well be discussing life after death,abortion rights or the collective wisdom of the Flat Earth Society.Believers will believe.In the mean time omnivores like me,generally of the "Western persuasion" would absolutely NOT accept our lamb or beef meat knowing that it came via the atrocious raising and killing methods extant in certain cultures.Google animal welfare if you have a strong stomach.Certainly the West has some animal husbandry practices that are very sub- optimal in terms of humaneness..we are working on that and yes,some things stick in the craw,but most of us are also somewhat distainful of the "Dark-Green" philosophy that suggests that since humans are the cause of all eco/natural/flora/fauna demise we should all disappear off the planet.Get a grip.We will always eat other animals and until I am convinced that a grazing sheep spends its days pondering its,hopefully humane, execution I will continue to eat meat.
Just for the record, I'm not a vegetarian. I happen to like meat. That doesn't prevent me from being appalled by the modern business of animal slaughter that feeds us. It is almost enough to make me a vegetarian, but I can't kick the habit. I do think that in future years, when we find another way to make protein, people will look back on our current practices in the same way we look at slavery. But maybe not. I'll be dead by then, so I'll never know. It's a nice thought for me while I'm alive.
Grace.. You might be totally correct about the H5N1. It was July of year before last that "ebola flu" was running about.
Did we see a hemmoraghic version of H5N1 blowing around in east China? In Turkey in December and January pets were a mandatory extermination. They gassed them in garbage cans with dry ice in them. Dog Auschwitz.
I dont know, I am getting that really bad feeling again about the World governments. I think they are lying their tales off to hide SOMETHING and I dont know what it is. Killing all of those dogs and not the cats is pretty indicative of something and something big. Sure it stops a four legged vector but there are millions of other four leggers over there including horses and beef that can catch it. Civet Cats, raccoons, mice, what else to they have that CANT catch it?
Why just the bloody damned dogs?
Very strange.
Randolf Kruger...err,pardon what on earth are you talking about?Call me stupid, but I don,t get it.
MRK re: "I dont know, I am getting that really bad feeling again about the World governments. I think they are lying their tales off to hide SOMETHING and I dont know what it is."
Yes,yes, yes- I agree 200% Something big is brewing...
Mara, 2 years ago before B. flu became the big kahuna that it is now there was an outbreak of something in E. China and 200 and change died of it. The Chinese government was calling it everything including VHF and/or a ebola flu.
Later a WHO investigator was travelling up country to investigate an avian flu outbreak and one whole township was dissapeared. 6500 people there. When asked where they were they said "flooding". Only problem with that is they were at the 3500 foot above the Yangtze River. Floods.
Since then every government on this planet has gone out of their way to hide, obfurscate, deny, lie, and spin everything that has come out about this including our vaunted CDC-Gerberding. I believe that the truth is out there and once its known it will be too late.
It reminds me of the military. We are briefed on a need to know basis. Someone else decides if I need to know.
Got it now?
How safe is it to bash and beat a possibly-rabid animal to death? If done on a wholesale level as in that city, there had to be plenty of bloody gore that would be infectious, no? It doesn't take a bite to get rabies, just contact with infectious bodily fluid, I thought, and some open wound. Without a total cleanup, how many mammals remain to dine on whatever offal is left?
For a country as regimented as China, it surprises me that mass innoculation is not the policy. I was aware of dog meat being the diet in some parts of the country, but didn't really think ahead as far as dog farming. Still, in a dog farm, what about parvovirus, and distemper? Illness like that could rage through a kennel in no time. If parvo spreads, I think it takes a big effort to sterilize the area before other dogs can be raised there.
Also, I don't know what the return on investment would be, but I would think that China could look to dog waste as a source of energy. Turn everybody into a good citizen by cleaning up after their registered animal and depositing the waste at a central location where it gets composted or burned or whatever.
I am clueless about so much of Chinese life. No doubt rural areas are far different than the cities which are exploding with capitalism. Cultural differences aside, I'm puzzled why something like this dog-cull would be undertaken when there would be many ways to manage the problem.
Egads!!!! More dogs to be slaughtered in China!
SHANGHAI, China - A second Chinese city planned a mass dog slaughter to contain a rabies outbreak, state media said Friday, days after similar massacre in another province drew outrage.
Officials in the eastern city of Jining said Thursday they would kill all dogs within three miles of areas where rabies was found, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The measure came in response to the deaths of 16 people from rabies in Jining in the last eight months, Xinhua said. It didnt say how many dogs would be killed, but said the city had about 500,000.
http://tinyurl.com/g95uy
MRK, I agree! "Hells Bells Revere. Dont they have vaccination programs? I am sure its less than 5 yuan to vaccinate and simply dropping it by plane also vaccinates the local equivalent of skunks, raccoons, free range dogs. I read there was one heck of a lot of infections in China in the last year, but beating someones dog to death is a time and motion thing. Has to be less expensive. Besides they didnt go after the cats...."
Probably the dogs had H5N1, and the rabies was just an euphenism meant for the stupids :/
They could be trying to head off H3N8 (Greyhound flu) from killing everyone's pet dogs. A mass pet extermination would cause major societal disruption.
BTW, I am pleased to announce that I will soon move from 5 miles to 15 miles away from Ground Zero (SFO). Unless I move a mile closer. Stanford overpromised 500 on-campus housing units, and now there are 500 people scrambling for apartments. This wouldn't happened if Condi was still running Stanford. On reflection, many things would be better if...
Chinees Authorities don't look at animals from a civilised angle.
Clubbing dogs to death on the spot of of petowners that are walking their dog on the streets, shows Chinees Authorities are completely dominating inhumanely towards everything that lives and breathes.
The curse that is inflicted on us by this psychopathical way of carrying out this barbarism is of an unimaginable context one cannot comprehend.
Let us hope Ancient Chinese Wisdom will return in these modern times where it is needed the most.
It cries out for it !!
My condolences to all petowners to overcome this horror that twisted their hopes and faith to a dead end street.
Saddam didn't like dogs either. This barbaric knee jerk reaction from an ingnorant government that has nuclear weapons scares me even more. It's stuff like this that makes me proud to live in the USA where something like this doesn't happen. We have freedom, tolerance, and a right to defend what we hold dear to us. Our country is changing too though. Let's hope our govenment doesn't overrun our gun and private domain search laws until we become like China
This sounds just like Mao's misguided efforts to kill all the sparrows. He thought that sparrows were eating all the crops, so he ordered farmers to kill as many as possible, which of course meant an explosion of insects, since they were no longer being eaten by the sparrows.
Another of Mao's brilliant ideas at the time was to double or triple the crop, simply by planting two to three times as many seeds in the same space (I guess no one ever thought of that before!). Since it was Mao's policy, it was reported to be successful, and local governments were then ordered to collect the usual percentage of the reported crop. Since the actual yield was far lower rather than far higher than average, trying to collect that amount meant stripping farmers of every last grain and leaving them to starve to death, while the warehouses filled up.
Between 10 and 30 million died in the Great Leap, thanks to a system where no one could question or apply evidence to government policies. The later Cultural Revolution was only necessary to kill off those with too clear a memory of the outcome of the Great Leap, so it also was a consequence of Mao's stupid crop and bird-killing ideas.
Authoritarian governments can get away with simplistic, knee-jerk solutions, regardless of whether they work.
I am sure that if the Chinese Government believed that it was important to stop the brutality and provide rabies vaccination in those provinces, it would not hesitate to do so.
Just to let you all know, the North Shore Animal League has started an online petition to China's Ambassador here in the US which has gathered almost 7,000 signatures since the weekend. Sign it and pass it on to everyone you know! The more voices the Chinese Government hears the better - there is no better way to communicate than making an ambassador outside China ashamed of his country and its actions against animals.
Here is a link to the petition:
http://ga4.org/campaign/china_petition?qp_source=sciencenews
I am sure that if the Chinese Government believed that it was important to stop the brutality and provide rabies vaccination in those provinces, it would not hesitate to do so.
Just to let you all know, the North Shore Animal League has started an online petition to China's Ambassador here in the US which has gathered almost 7,000 signatures since the weekend. Sign it and pass it on to everyone you know! The more voices the Chinese Government hears the better - there is no better way to communicate than making an ambassador outside China ashamed of his country and its actions against animals.
Here is a link to the petition:
http://ga4.org/campaign/china_petition?qp_source=sciencenews