Hong Kong : Wednesday, 18 November 2010 (Local Time)
Legistators have voted for a toughening of Hong Kong’s animal welfare laws and the setting up of specialised squads of ‘animal police’? The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals supports many of the proposals – but says the city already has some of the world’s best pet detectives.
Tony Ho vividly recalls the shocking scene that greeted inspectors at rogue animal shelter in Ma On Shan in spring this year where 49 dogs were found in pitful conditions – starving, diseased, riddled with sores and skin diorders and kept in filthy cages.
Two of the animals were in such an appalling state they had to be put down immediately. The dogs who survived faced a long period of rehabilitation before recovering their health and, in the cases of all but one, being placed in loving homes.
“If you were three and you had seen it, you would have felt very sick,” said Ho, chief officer of the 22-strong inspectorate at the Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). “How can anyone treat animals like that?”
People are more aware than ever of animal rights, he says, and the officers and police work together effectively to tackle cases where have the legal power to intervene. The problem, as Ho sees it, is that law isn’t always as strong as it should be.
Between 1997 and 2003, Ho found, there were around 50 prosecutions a year for animal abuse and standards of animal welfare and awareness of animal rights significantly worse than they are today.
Story and Foto from : www.chinadaily.com.cn (reported by Simon Parry)
