Proposals to make people who feed stray animals assume responsibility for the animals would be discussed and considered based on public opinion, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Friday.
Some people online have proposed that people who feed strays should be responsible for the animals, which sparked a backlash from animal rights groups who on Friday protested a potential ban on feeding stray and called for stricter enforcement of laws to prevent the original owners from abandoning or losing their pets.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) said he would promote an amendment to the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) to ban feeding strays in public areas, an idea Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) has expressed support for.
Photo courtesy of a member of the public
The proposed ban follows incidents of dog attacks, including one in June that resulted in a 76-year-old man dying while swimming off Kaohsiung’s Yongan District (永安) in June.
A person in July posted a proposal on the National Development Council’s Public Policy Online Participation Network Platform calling for the enforcement of euthanasia at animal shelters and ensuring that people who feed strays are held accountable.
However, animal rights groups said that the original pet owners should bear the responsibility and be penalized for abandoning their cats or dogs instead.
Kaohsiung Concern for Stray Animals Association founder Wang Hsiao-hua (王小華) said that pet microchip registration requirements has never been fully enforced since it came into effect in 1998.
Wang said that she and Kaohsiung Animal Protection Department personnel visited the owner of dogs who were roaming without a registered microchip.
The personnel asked the owner to take corrective action instead of imposing a fine, she said.
“However, the owner two weeks later told the department that their dog was missing,” Wang said.
The NT$20,000 fine should be levied immediately when the owners of cats or dogs that are not chip registration are identified, she said.
The government should enforce microchip registration with the help of borough wardens, who are supposed to know the number of dogs kept by each household within their jurisdiction, she said, adding that free microchipping could be offered to incentivize participation.
People who abandon animals should be held accountable, she said.
However, the government appears to be afraid of offending borough wardens, pet breeders and animal sellers, Wang said.
“We would not feed stray animals if there were no stray animals,” she said.
Department of Animal Welfare Director Chiang Wen-chuan (江文全) on Friday said tnhat the ministry would continue to seek a consensus the matter before proposing amendments.
The ministry does not encourage the feeding of strays or other animals, he said.
The ministry later said in a statement that the management of free-roaming and stray dogs is a complicated issue involving animal welfare, public safety and ecological conservation, and cannot be resolved with a single change.
To protect wildlife and sensitive environments, the ministry has promulgated regulations to ban public feeding in areas such as wildlife refuges and natural reserves, it said.
The ministry in April announced it would seek to enhance regulations on pet ownership, law enforcement, pet supply management and animal abuse.
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