Animal rights activists hold a rally outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei yesterday demanding human treatment of strays by the government. The sign reads: "Stray cats and dogs are not garbage." CNA

TAIPEI: Taiwan's Executive Yuan promised yesterday to take measures to put an end to inhumane treatment of stray dogs and cats, in response to a petition by animal rights activists.

"Minister" without Portfolio Lian Chi-yuan said the Executive Yuan will have all illegal midway homes for stray dogs and cats around the island closed, while taking action to help push for the establishment of a governmental unit in charge of animal protection.

Representatives of 31 animal protection organizations, headed by Chu Tseng-hung, executive director of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST), gathered at the Executive Yuan earlier in the day, asking for intervention in the mishandling of stray dogs and cats they have observed in the country.

After spending three years conducting field surveys, the EAST found that most midway homes and shelters set up by local governments to house stray dogs and cats are substandard and treat the animals cruelly, Chu said.

EAST inspectors visited 122 of 140 such shelters of throughout Taiwan before discovering that 104 of them are the so-called "detention centers," in which local government-run sanitation teams keep stray dogs and cats they catch on the streets.

Such a facility is illegal, Chu said, noting that "of course they do not meet the regulations governing establishment of stray animal shelters."

According to an EAST report of the surveys, "detention centers" are usually situated on waste dump sites, public cemeteries or places close to slaughter houses that people rarely visit.

In such places, dogs and cats are locked in cages for one to several days before being transferred to the shelters, but in some townships, they are left in the detention centers permanently until they are put to death or die of what, in some cases, would be euphemistically called "natural causes".

"Many cats and dogs are fed decayed food and bacteria-breeding water, or even fed nothing, while locked in an extremely dirty environment," the EAST said.

Currently, 17 of 25 counties and cities in Taiwan let their local sanitation units handle stray animals in the same way they handle "wastes," it added.

Despite Taiwan's Animal Protection Act being put in force in 1998, there are so far only a few city and county governments opening special offices in charge of animal protection affairs, showing serious care for stray animals, the EAST criticized.

At the Executive Yuan, the animal protection groups petitioned for the establishment of an animal protection agency under the Council of Agriculture (COA) while asking all local governments to set up standard shelters for stray animals.

Their calls have received the support of 17 lawmakers who endorsed a proposal to amend the COA organic act to allow the formation of the animal protection agency, Chu said.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 11/18/2009 page2)