Chinese systematically kill pets of SARS patients
No proof animals harbour disease, but strays are targeted

Gady Epstein
The Baltimore Sun; Associated Press

Wednesday, May 07, 2003

CREDIT: Richard Vogel, Associated Press

Chinese society has a way to go in the treatment of pets, officials claim.

BEIJING -- In a grim reflection of this city's determination to subdue the SARS epidemic, authorities in protective suits are killing dogs while their owners are locked away in hospital wards as suspected or confirmed SARS cases.

Some pet owners, fearing their animals could carry SARS, are taking grisly measures with their own dogs and cats or abandoning them to a grim fate, since stray animals are also being put down by authorities. Still others, fearing a violent end for their pets at the hands of authorities or neighbours, are asking veterinarians to euthanize their animals.

Wang Xiaojiang felt she had no choice last week but to leave town for southern China, escaping not SARS but the intense animal anxiety she feared might claim the lives of her two Pekinese, Meimei and Pangpang, and her 13-year-old mutt, Wawa.

"I was afraid that if some of my neighbours got SARS or were suspected of getting SARS, that my pets would be taken away by authorities and killed," Wang said. "The pets have brought us a lot of joy, so now when we have difficulties, I would never give them up. I would never surrender the pets to the SARS situation."

There is no proof that dogs and cats can spread SARS, but some local authorities and state media accounts have given the impression domestic animals are a SARS threat.

Local government officials said that abandoned dogs and pets of owners suspected to have SARS will be killed, and in some districts, the message has been vaguer.

"In remote districts, they sent out propaganda trucks saying you better dispose of your own animals," said Yin Tieyuan, a veterinarian at Sai Jia Animal Hospital in Beijing. "On that day people came here [trying to euthanize their pets], because they were afraid if they didn't do it, they would be forced to kill their pets painfully."

In a well-publicized case last week a Beijing man threw his Pekinese out the sixth-storey window of his building but failed to kill it, so he walked downstairs and buried the dog alive.

"A lot of people have done terrible things they should never have done," said Zhang Luping, whose Beijing shelter in the past two weeks has received 20 to 30 abandoned animals, far more than normal. "People are spreading this news to each other that pets may get infected, so they are spreading this idea that if you have pets you should do something about it, essentially that means to kill them."

The SARS pet panic has been jarring to many owners and activists, who have seen attitudes about pets gradually change over the past 20 years. One-child families, childless young couples and an elderly generation no longer living with extended families have all built a growing market for pets, but SARS shows that many owners still have much to learn about how they should be treated.

"To have a companion animal at home is really new in many cities in China, and many owners of pets, they do not know how to be responsible, what is their responsibility to these dogs and cats," said Aster Zhang, a director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Government regulations do not make dog-owning easy. Beijing allows public dog-walking only before 8 in the morning and after 7 at night, a difficult restriction for owners and dogs. And the costs of owning a dog are high, including a first-year registration cost equivalent to $850 Cdn in Beijing, all but unaffordable for low-income city residents and equal to one or two months' salary for many others.

In the early 1990s, the fee was even more out of reach for most Chinese, and walking a dog conveyed the same kind of class message as driving a BMW once did in North America.

"Some people, they didn't like them in the first place. They started keeping pets because it was just a fashion to do so, it was a trend, it was a status symbol," said Yin, the veterinarian. "So when it wasn't a status symbol anymore, people started to abandon them and the bond came to an end, because they didn't really like them."

Since then, advocates said, social and official attitudes have been changing in Beijing. Government officials have been more open to the concerns of pet owners, animal advocates said, and some advocates hold out hope that authorities will respond to their protests about the treatment of animals during the SARS outbreak.

Still, they suggest Chinese society has some distance to go in the treatment of pets.

"Now with the SARS panic, people start thinking humans first, ahead of animals," Yin said. "It's vital for the government to come up with some kind of guidance, instead of misinforming the people when dealing with these kinds of problems."

China remains worst-hit by the respiratory illness, reporting 138 more cases and eight new fatalities Tuesday, raising its death toll to 214.

Hong Kong said it had six more dead -- pushing its tally to 193. However, only nine new cases of infection were reported in the former British colony, adding to hopes that the worst might be over there. One new death was reported in Taiwan.

There have been 23 SARS deaths in Canada, where the disease now appears under control with only 33 active probable and 33 suspected cases of the disease. Most of the Canadian SARS cases and all of the deaths have been in the Toronto area.

The worldwide SARS death toll was at least 479 Tuesday.

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