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China Pets Fast Becoming
Victims Of SARS Panic
By Gady A. Epstein
The Baltimore Sun
5-7-3
| BEIJING -- In a grim reflection
of this city's determination to subdue the SARS epidemic, authorities in
protective suits are killing dogs, in some cases by beating them, while
their owners are locked away in hospital wards as suspected or confirmed
SARS cases. Some pet owners, fearing that their animals could carry SARS, are taking grisly measures with their own dogs and cats, or abandoning them to a grim fate, since stray animals are also being put down by authorities. Still others, fearing a violent end for their pets at the hands of authorities or neighbors, are pre-emptively asking veterinarians to euthanize their animals. Wang Xiaojiang felt she had no choice last week but to leave town for southern China, escaping not SARS but the intense animal anxiety that she feared might claim the lives of her two Pekinese, Meimei and Pangpang, and her 13-year-old mutt, Wawa. "I was afraid that if some of my neighbors got SARS or were suspected of getting SARS, that my pets would be taken away by authorities and killed," Wang said, speaking by cellular phone from the winter apartment in Shenzhen that she shares with her husband. "The pets have brought us a lot of joy, so now when we have difficulties, I would never give them up. I would never surrender the pets to the SARS situation." There is no proof that dogs and cats can spread SARS, but some local authorities and state media accounts have given the impression that domestic animals are a SARS threat. Local government officials said that both abandoned dogs and pets of owners suspected to have SARS will be killed, and in some districts, the message has been more vague. "In remote districts, they sent out propaganda trucks saying you better dispose of your own animals," said Yin Tieyuan, a veterinarian at Sai Jia Animal Hospital in Beijing. "On that day people came here [trying to euthanize their pets], because they were afraid if they didn't do it, they would be forced to kill their pets painfully." Yin said he turned away his would-be clients, telling them their dogs were healthy and shouldn't be killed, but he said many owners either searched for a willing vet or ultimately abandoned their pets. He said misleading accounts on state media have increased the anxiety. One expert in virology said on a nationally televised show that animals may spread the virus, but the expert made no distinction between farm animals and pets: "You shouldn't broadcast something so irresponsible," Yin said. And a story publicized last week by both television and newspapers wrongly asserted that three ill dogs found in a western district of Beijing -- two of them foaming at the mouth -- were suspected of having SARS, Yin said. The government should step in to correct the misinformation, as Hong Kong officials did early in that city's outbreak, Yin said. "When people first started to abandon their pets, the health minister in Hong Kong came out to clarify that these pets have nothing to do with SARS, and very quickly people stopped abandoning their pets," Yin said. "But so far Beijing government hasn't come up with any kind of announcement like this, so people are still throwing out their pets, still abandoning them." Stories of animal hysteria range from state media reports of the abandonment of 183 dogs in the southeastern city of Hangzhou, to crueler examples relayed by Beijing animal advocates, such as pet owners crushing their own animals under the wheels of their cars on back roads. "A lot of people have done terrible things they should never have done," said Zhang Luping, whose Beijing shelter in the past two weeks has received 20 to 30 abandoned animals, far more than normal. "People are spreading this news to each other that pets may get infected, so they are spreading this idea that if you have pets you should do something about it, essentially that means to kill them." The SARS pet panic has been jarring to many owners and activists, who have seen attitudes about pets gradually change over the past 20 years. One-child families, childless young couples and an elderly generation no longer living with extended families have all built a growing market for pets, but SARS shows that many owners still have much to learn about how they should be treated. |
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