This is officially the worst thing i've heard of in a long time. Is this how they do things in China? Just horrible, awful. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14139027/ SHANGHAI, China - China slaughtered 50,000 dogs in a government-ordered crackdown after three people died of rabies, sparking unusually pointed criticism in state media Tuesday and an outcry from animal rights activists. Health experts said the brutal policy pointed to deep weaknesses in the health care infrastructure in China, where only 3 percent of dogs are vaccinated against rabies and more than 2,000 people die of the disease each year. The five-day slaughter in Mouding county in Yunnan province in southwestern China ended Sunday and spared only military guard dogs and police canine units, state media reported. 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, they said. The killings were widely discussed on the Internet, with both legal scholars and animal rights activists criticizing them as crude and cold-blooded. The World Health Organization said more emphasis needed to be placed on rabies prevention. Mass killings condemned The official newspaper Legal Daily blasted the killings as an “extraordinarily crude, cold-blooded and lazy way for the government to deal with epidemic disease.” “Wiping out the dogs shows these government officials didn’t do their jobs right in protecting people from rabies in the first place,” the newspaper, published by the central government’s Politics and Law Committee, said in an editorial in its online edition. In an editorial, the official Xinhua News Agency said the killings wouldn’t have been necessary if the local government had been more attentive, but called the slaughter “the only way out of a bad situation.” “If they’d discovered this earlier, they could have vaccinated the dogs and ... controlled the outbreak,” the editorial said. Pet activists call for boycott The killings prompted calls for a boycott of Chinese products from the activist group People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “We are urging everyone to actively boycott — not a word we use lightly — anything from China given the bludgeoning killing of thousands of dogs,” PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said. She said the group had canceled all orders of merchandise it sells that are made in China. Will Wright, at PETA’s European office in London, said the orders were worth about $300,000. “We believe other groups will join us in expressing outrage over the blatant cruelty to animals the world is witnessing,” Wright said. Mouding County officials defended the slaughter in a region where about 360 of the 200,000 residents suffered dog bites this year, with three people reportedly dying of rabies, including a 4-year-old girl. “With the aim to keep this horrible disease from people, we decided to kill the dogs,” Li Haibo, a spokesman for the county government, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. Calls to county government offices went unanswered Tuesday. Located in mountains about 1,240 miles southwest of Shanghai, Mouding is famed for its Buddhist shrines. A dog's life for real Unlike in the West, where dogs have long been cherished as companions or helpmates, dogs have rarely had an easy time in China. Dog meat is eaten throughout the country, revered as a tonic in winter and a restorer of virility in men. Following the communist seizure of power in 1949, dog ownership was condemned as a bourgeois affectation and canines were hunted as pests. Attitudes have softened in recent years, although urban Chinese are still subject to strict rules on the size of their pets and must pay steep registration fees. About 70 percent of rural households now keep dogs, according to the Chinese Center of Disease Control and Prevention, and increased rates of dog ownership have been tied to a surge in the number of rabies cases in recent years. It said there were 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last year for which data was available. Access to rabies treatment is also highly limited, especially in the countryside, said Dr. Francette Dusan, a World Health Organization expert. Effective rabies control requires coordinated efforts between human health, animal health and municipal agencies and authorities, Dusan said. “This has not been pursued adequately to date in China, with most control efforts consisting of purely reactive dog culls,” she said. © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Yeah the list of atrocities coming out of China is just disgusting. I'm sure the state news agency has repressed 90% of the incidents, also. We're just getting the tip of the iceberg. covering up SARS, not telling citizens of deadly chemical spills in rivers, clubbing to death 50,000 dogs...all part of "modern day" China.
I think the local officials are just too incompetant to work out a more effective way for rabies prevention. Thinking twice though, I feel it's not more paranoid than killing millions of chickens and cows due to fear of bird flu and mad cow diseases. However, ppl just don't have that sentiment toward those poor chicken.
Yes it is worse IMO. Lebanon is a warzone and there are innocent casualties in war zones. These are people's beloved pets being clubbed to death. At least show a more humane way of killing the dogs if need be other than clubbing them.
Every year, Americans send millions of their pets to pounds and shelters just because they're not cute anymore. Most are euthanized even when puppies and kittens are being snatched up at pet stores. The sheer number alone makes it as cold and sick as this because there's really no excuse.
The mullahs in iran have executed over three hunderd thousend people( political prisoners, of deiiferent religions) and currently there is over eight hunderd thousend political prisoners. the people in lebanon are suffering. in africa, civil wars are the norm. the world is a mess. if thats the worst thing is happening in china, then it's not that bad of a country.
Exactly the method is more crude and brutal but . . in the end it is the samething this is like debating how the needle in the arm is better than the Chair hhhhmmmm 50K Dogs dying versus 2k people Dying Sorry but Lassie has to got the final Home. Alternatives - basically they come around with the Rabies Vaccine. . You pay what ever that cost. . .or Lassie gets bashed in the head that is about the only thing they could have offered but then again . . . I don't know the expense and logistics of carrying that much Rabies Vaccine for dogs Rocket River . . how many birds were killed because of the Bird Flu?? I think it was way more than 50K
its not the worst thing happening in china. executing prisoners and political dissidents and harvesting their organs "China's refusal to give outsiders access to the bodies of executed prisoners has added to suspicions about what happens afterward: Corpses are typically driven to a crematorium and burned before relatives or independent witnesses can view them. Chinese authorities are sensitive to allegations that they are complicit in the organ trade. In March, the Ministry of Health issued regulations explicitly banning the sale of organs and tightening approval standards for transplants. Even so, Amnesty International said in a report in April that huge profits from the sale of prisoners' organs might be part of why China refuses to consider doing away with the death penalty. "Given the high commercial value of organs, it is doubtful the new regulations will have an effect," Allison says. " http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-death-van_x.htm mobile execution vans that drive around carrying out capital punishments http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HG21Ad01.html http://web.amnesty.org/wire/May2003/China chinas "one child" policy, which leads to couples killing their own children (usually the girls) or the government doing it for them. in light of all this, clubbing 50,000 dogs seems pretty dang nice of them.
