By Carly Ikuma
In the closing months of the Year of the Dog, China's canines finally caught a break when earlier this month President Hu Jintao ordered the immediate cessation of mass killings of dogs, according to reports from several animal welfare organizations in China. The mass killings, first reported in August of this year, have reflected poorly on China's image leading up to the 2008 Olympics.
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Thanks to the outpouring of support and the hundreds of thousands of letters of protest to Chinese officials, President Hu Jintao has made the decision to end the dog culls.
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President Hu Jintao
Chinese Communist Party
Yongdingmenjie
Beijing 100032, PRC
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The president, reported to be surprised by the massive outpouring of protest against the dog culls, recently ordered that all indiscriminate killings of dogs be stopped immediately. Hu's order has reportedly stopped the crackdown on large dogs in Beijing, an action taken earlier last month by city officials.
China has been battling a rise in rabies outbreaks across the country and had instituted the mass killing of dogs as a way to stop the spread of the virus. Reports that 50,000 dogs were slaughtered in the southeastern province of Yunnan this summer sparked an enormous wave of worldwide protest. The inhumane measures have never proven effective, and are condemned by the World Health Organization as an inadequate long-term solution to zoonotic outbreaks.
The Humane Society of the United States and its international arm, Humane Society International, have offered advice and assistance to China, even presenting $100,000 to start a collaborative humane animal control program. Though the Chinese government did not respond to this offer, HSUS/HSI remains hopeful that President Hu's latest action will be the first of many more positive ones taken by China to adopt and implement humane animal welfare policies and laws.
Hu's orders have stopped the culls and crackdown for now, but Beijing's dog regulations still prohibit keeping dogs taller than 35cm, despite a lack of evidence proving larger dogs are more aggressive or likely to spread rabies than dogs shorter than 35cm.
HSUS/HSI are sponsors of the Asia for Animals conference in India in January 2007, where China will no doubt be a highlighted topic of discussion.
