South China kills dogs to send a message
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:
GUANGZHOU–The Guangdong provincial government seized the
2005 National Day weekend, the first in October, to send messages
to both pet keepers and Beijing.
The message for pet keepers was that the rising popularity of
pet dogs will not be allowed to jeopardize the dog meat industry,
either by spreading rabies, the pretext used for killing pet dogs in
the streets, or by building a human constituency for treating dogs
kindly.
“The Guangzhou campaign follows similar crackdowns in
Shanghai and other cities across the mainland, as dog attacks and
rabies cases increase and more urban dwellers keep pets,” noted
Simon Parry of the South China Morning Post. But Parry failed to
note that the dogs most at risk from rabies are so-called “meat
dogs,” raised in close confinement and not required to be vaccinated.
The Guangdong message for Beijing was that even as the
central government strives to build a more animal-friendly image in
advance of the 2008 Olympic Games, in the part of China where dogs,
cats, and wildlife are relatively rarely eaten, the Cantonese
southern and coastal regions are quite capable of spoiling the effort.