A sad story. This is an example of Communism at its worst. A local committee can order anything it wishes, at any time, and its will must be obeyed.
This mass extermination of dogs is not, sadly, anything new. For many decades after the Chinese revolution, having a dog was banned. To quote the article you cited, Catherine:
"The keeping of dogs as pets was effectively outlawed during the first decades of the People’s Republic, denounced by communist leaders as a bourgeois affectation and waste of scarce resources".
I also remember one year in the past when the Chinese Communist Party decided that birds were eating crops, so they should be shot. Countless birds were shot all over China in a massive campaign that year (I can't remember which year it was). The result? Insects ate the crops, and the amount harvested was less than ever! So that idea was abandoned.
I wonder whether killing all the dogs may result in an increase of rats and mice this time around.....
I hope that this extermination of all dogs in one area is only a temporary blip on China's path to a broader understanding of animals and the balance of nature. The growing group of animal welfare people in China needs to work hard to stop this idea from spreading, and we need to help them by publicising this "genocide" of dogs in this region.
This mass extermination of dogs is not, sadly, anything new. For many decades after the Chinese revolution, having a dog was banned. To quote the article you cited, Catherine:
"The keeping of dogs as pets was effectively outlawed during the first decades of the People’s Republic, denounced by communist leaders as a bourgeois affectation and waste of scarce resources".
I also remember one year in the past when the Chinese Communist Party decided that birds were eating crops, so they should be shot. Countless birds were shot all over China in a massive campaign that year (I can't remember which year it was). The result? Insects ate the crops, and the amount harvested was less than ever! So that idea was abandoned.
I wonder whether killing all the dogs may result in an increase of rats and mice this time around.....
I hope that this extermination of all dogs in one area is only a temporary blip on China's path to a broader understanding of animals and the balance of nature. The growing group of animal welfare people in China needs to work hard to stop this idea from spreading, and we need to help them by publicising this "genocide" of dogs in this region.
