About 5,000 pet lovers walked through the busy streets of Taipei yesterday afternoon in a parade urging the government to treat street dogs humanely and implement neutering policies instead of euthanasia.
Beginning at 3:30pm, hundreds of dogs and thousands of people — mostly young, with some dressed in animal costumes or wearing novelty animal ears — packed one side of Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building as they gathered for the demonstration set to start at 4pm.
The parade was organized by an alliance advocating changes to the Animal Protection Act (動物保育法), aimed at demanding a trap-neuter-release (TNR) program to replace what they see as inhumane treatment and ineffective euthanasia of stray animals.
Photo: CNA
Alliance executive director Huang Tai-shan (黃泰山) said the act is flawed because any dog can be taken away by dogcatchers once it is reported on the streets, even if it has not harmed any people.
Since the act was first enforced 13 years ago, about 1.04 million stray dogs have already died in public animal shelters, so only by enforcing a TNR program can the goal of reducing stray animals be achieved, he said.
The alliance said four main principles should be obeyed when legislating the TNR program: “accurate capturing” to ensure animals are not caught arbitrarily, “government-subsidized neutering and spaying,” “neutering and spaying management” and “promotion of TNR through education” to reduce confrontations among people with different opinions toward stray animals.
“Stray pets are caused by the innocence and mistakes of human beings, so the problem should be solved by human beings, rather than have the animals take the blame,” demonstration host Wang Chieh (王婕) said, adding that “‘respect for life’ is a basic value that defines a civilized society.”
Walking dogs on leashes or holding them in their arms, parade participants chanted “Reject indiscriminate capturing; we want neutering,” and “Break through the bad law and win back lives,” as they marched through Ximending (西門町) and in front of the Taipei Railway Station.
“We are not irrational pet lovers and stray-animal policy is not only an issue for pet owners,” Carolyn Chen (陳珮騏), a Taiwanese TV actress, told the crowd through a microphone as they paraded through the shopping area of Ximending.
“If you pay taxes to the government, then you should know that it takes an average of about NT$5,000 to NT$8,000 to get rid of a street dog through the current policy, including capturing, sheltering, killing, freezing and cremating it,” Chen said, adding that most of the money is not spent on treating the dogs humanely.
Chen said that TNR enforced by some pet-lovers — who paid NT$2,000 to NT$3,000 per dog — has proved effective in reducing strays in their communities.
A woman surnamed Chi (紀) said she and several pet lovers founded a Facebook group that — through cooperation and shared workloads — has saved dozens of stray dogs from shelters by taking them to veterinarians, settling them at foster homes and finding them new owners.
“But although we spend countless hours and energy saving as many as we can, the problem will not be solved if the policy is not changed,” Chi said, suggesting that if the government adopts a TNR policy, abandoning pets should demand harsher legal punishments and illegal breeding sites should be targeted in a crackdown.
The demonstration attracted plenty of attention from pedestrians. Many onlookers took out their smartphones to take pictures of the parading pets.
The parade returned to Ketagalan Boulevard at about 6:30pm, and an evening event with lectures was expected to continue into the evening.
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