Dog pounds in the Philippines are being allowed to kill stray dogs with vehicle exhaust fumes, local animal welfare groups said yesterday, a practice they say is cruel and inhumane.
The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and two other groups called for the government to reverse an agricultural department ruling in June that approved the gassing method to kill dogs.
“If we need to put a dog to death because he cannot be cared for, the least we can do is send him off as painlessly and as humanely as possible,” PAWS program director Anna Cabrera said.
Carbon monoxide gassing is used in several US states and Japan to put down animals, but in a less cruel manner, Cabrera said.
She said in the Philippines it was done by shutting up to eight dogs in a metal box, attaching a hose from a car to the box, and revving the engine to fill the box with exhaust fumes.
Cabrera said it normally took up to 10 minutes for the dogs to die.
More than 27,000 dogs are put down in Philippine pounds each month, according to PAWS, but it said it did not know how many of these deaths were via the gassing method.
In related news, a Philippine court has fined and sentenced 13 Vietnamese poachers to several months in prison after they were caught two years ago trying to flee with 101 critically endangered Hawksbill Turtles, a conservationist group said yesterday.
The World Wide Fund for Nature said the sentences, handed down last week in the southwestern island province of Palawan, could serve as a precedent and a strong warning to poachers from nearby countries who in the past have escaped prison time.
The Puerto Princesa Regional Trial Court convicted and sentenced the fishermen to between six and 18 months in prison plus fines.
The court ruled that only the fines remain to be served because the poachers have been detained since September 2008.
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