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Forum puts emphasis on animal rights

"The Animal Protection Act of 1998 has had a big impact."

-- Johnson Chian, president of the Taiwan Veternary Medical Association

The issues of animal welfare and animal rights featured high on the agenda of the two-day World Veterinary Day forum in Taipei, which concluded yesterday.

"As vets, we have a duty to promote animal welfare," Johnson Chiang (江世明), the president of the Taiwan Veterinary Medical Association, told the forum.

A third of the lectures at the two-day conference were devoted to animal welfare issues. The lectures were given by Taiwanese and foreign experts.

The need to focus more on minimizing the suffering of animals that are raised for economic purposes was a recurring theme at the forum, cropping up in talks by experts from Japan, India and New Zealand.

Economic efficiency, a lack of space and local traditions and customs are often at odds with animal welfare concerns.

"Laws are often conceived with dogs and cats in mind," Hitoshi Aoki of Japan's Hitosubashi University said. "It has been difficult in Japan to enlarge the laws protecting pets to cover experimental animals and those raised for food because it is expensive to do so."

Although Taiwan has laws requiring animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered, enforcement has been lax.

"It has only been a year or two since the government standards were instituted and there is room for improvement," Chiang said.

Research performed by the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan shows that more than 70 percent of all pigs slaughtered in Taiwan are killed in an inhumane fashion that does not conform with the law.

The society's report on the issue spurred the World Society for the Protection of Animals to condemn the nation's cruelty to pigs.

"We have the tallest building in the world, but we still slaughter animals in horrific ways," said Chu Cheng-hung (朱增宏), president of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan.

"This makes us look barbaric to the world," Chu said.

Despite the problems with slaughter practices and frequent reports of animal cruelty, the nation has come a long way in terms of animal-rights awareness and treatment, attendees at the forum said.

"The Animal Protection Act of 1998 has had a big impact," Chiang said.

Before the act, Chiang said, there were no animal shelters in Taiwan where animals could be cared for in a humane fashion before they were adopted or euthanized if there was no other option.

Andrew Fei, (費昌勇), a professor of veterinary sciences at National Taiwan University, gave a presentation at the forum showing that 19 percent of all dogs adopted from shelters are later abandoned.

Further analysis shows that the dogs' behavioral problems are are the leading cause of abandonment, he added.

"There needs to be more screening in place to ensure only dogs that are well adapted socially are offered for adoption," he said.

Fei also called for all animals adopted from the more than 30 government-funded animal shelters to be neutered to reduce the number of strays. Only about 40 percent of all animals in the shelters are neutered now.
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