The Environmental and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) yesterday vowed to take legal action against Taipei County officials, saying a recent survey found that several government animal shelters throughout the county were in a terrible condition.
“EAST will file a petition with the Control Yuan asking it to launch a probe into the misconduct of Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) and Taipei County Agriculture Bureau Director Tsai Kuan-jung (蔡光榮) based on what we’ve discovered at animal shelters established by several cleaning squads across the county,” EAST chairman Thomas Chan (詹順貴) said.
Instead of explaining their anger in words, the group showed a video clip that they shot at animal shelters set up by cleaning squads in Sijhih (汐止) and Yonghe (永和), Shimen (石門), Shiding (石碇), -Shuangsi (雙溪), Linkou (林口), Taishan (泰山), Wulai (烏來) and Pinglin (坪林) townships.
PHOTO: CNA
In the video clip, stray dogs that had been captured by the cleaning squads were being kept in small and dirty cages, most of them without food or water in their bowls. Some of the dogs were shown to be eating their own feces. Even for those dogs that were “lucky” enough to have water in their bowl, the water appeared to be very dirty as well.
“We’ve checked on these shelters every two or three days to make sure they have food and water and every time we went, most of the dogs didn’t have any water or food at all,” EAST director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said.
Some of the dogs were injured when they were caught by the cleaning squads, but their wounds were left untreated.
“All these animal shelters are administered by cleaning squads that receive government funding,” Chen said. “They get money from taxpayers, but apparently they are not using the money properly, if at all.”
An official from the Taipei County Animal Disease Control Center, Hsieh Sung-chih (謝松志), appeared at the press conference as the sole official representative of the county government.
Hsieh sparked anger from EAST members when he said that the Taipei County Government banned cleaning squads from establishing animal shelters in November last year and the county government had not found any cleaning-squad animal shelters during their monthly inspections since then.
When questioned by the media about the shelters in the video clip, Hsieh asked EAST to provide him with a copy of the video and he said he would check into it afterward.
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