Houston Community News >> Beijing One Dog Policy
11/9/2006 Beijing - The
authorities announced Wednesday a “one dog” policy for many Beijing households
as part of an effort to eradicate rabies.
The official New China News Agency said the limit would apply to nine zones in
Beijing.
“Only one pet dog is allowed per household in the zones, and dangerous and large
dogs will be banned,” the news agency said. “Anyone keeping an unlicensed dog
will face prosecution.”
Rabies is on the rise in China, where only 3 percent of dogs are vaccinated
against the disease, which attacks the nervous system. The disease nearly always
kills humans after the development of symptoms, though it can be warded off by a
series of injections.
Rabies killed 318 people nationwide in September, according to the news agency.
There were 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last full year
for which data are available.
In Beijing, 69,000 people sought treatment for rabies last year, according to
state news media.
The Humane Society of the United States said the Chinese policy failed to
address the underlying reason for the rabies crisis.
“The focus should be on rabies vaccination rather than a limitation on the
number of dogs in a household,” said Wayne Pacelle, the organization’s president
and chief executive. “Large-scale vaccination programs aimed at reducing and
eradicating rabies programs do work in large nations.”
Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said
the policy might prevent people from acquiring more dogs than they could care
for.
“It’s sad that it comes to this,” she said, “but for the dogs’ sake, restricting
people to one dog stops impulse acquisition, encourages better care and will
reduce the numbers who are suffering on the streets.”
The limit on dogs in the capital was announced by the Beijing police and the
city agencies for agriculture and commerce, the news agency said. Abandoning
dogs will be an offense under the new regulations.
Dog owners will also be forbidden from taking their dogs to public places like
markets, shops, parks, exhibition halls, amusement parks, railway waiting rooms
and sightseeing areas.
The authorities prompted an outcry in July and August when they conducted
several mass killings of dogs. In a county in Yunnan Province, where three
people had died of rabies, the authorities killed 50,000 dogs, many of them
beaten to death in front of their owners.
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.
After the Communist seizure of power in 1949, dog ownership was condemned as a
bourgeois affectation and dogs 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.
(Contributed by AP)