AR-News: China's first stab at welfare law

[Barry Kent MacKay]

Posted: 10 May 2004 1357 hrs 

Beijing considers first-ever legislation to protect 'animal welfare' 

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/84084/1/.html

 
 
BEIJING: Beijing is considering draft laws to protect "animal welfare," in
what would be the first legislation of its kind in the country.

The regulations would ban abuse against animals and contain requirements
on how they should be treated, including how they are transported or
slaughtered,
the Beijing Daily says.

The proposal comes after China carried out mass slaughters of weasel-like
civet cats last year to fight the respiratory disease SARS, which is
suspected
to be transmitted from wildlife to humans.

China also killed millions of chickens, ducks and other fowl in several
provinces
to fight bird flu this year.

Images of civet cats dumped into large vats of disinfectant to be drowned
and of poultry being stuffed into sacks and burned alive were splashed on
TV screens and newspapers during the culls.

The new regulation stipulates that no-one should harass, mistreat or hurt
animals.

It also states that while carrying animals from one place to another, the
vehicles used must be kept clean and animals must be protected from
suffering
shock, torture or harm, the Xinhua news agency said.

If animals have to be slaughtered out of necessity, such as to control the
spread of animal epidemics, they must be killed in a humane way that will
cause them the least pain, according to the regulation.

They also must be first put under anesthesia and not be killed in front of
other animals, the draft regulation says, according to the Beijing Daily.

Laboratory experiments that cause injury or death to animals can only be
carried out at senior high school level or above, while arranging fights
between animals or between humans and animals for gambling, entertainment,
or other commercial purposes would be banned.

Those who fail to abide by the proposed law face fines of up to 10,000 yuan
(1,209 dollars).

China's animal protection laws mainly apply to endangered species, and even
those laws are not well-enforced.

There is little protection for household pets, for example, many of which
were thrown on the streets by their owners last year due to SARS fears.

________________________________

  Barry Kent MacKay
  Canadian Representative
  ANIMAL PROTECTION INSTITUTE 
  www.api4animals.org