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If you can, please support campaign to end Chinese dog cull

https://www.animalsasia.org/donate/?DogAppeal&tkn=m1048435&...

Animal welfare as a concept is beginning to take hold in parts of China thanks in large part to the efforts of organizations like Animals Asia, but there is a long, long way to go. This cull is affecting strays as well as family pets who are being snatched up and brutally killed by mobs right before the family whose tears and desperate pleas are ignored. The stories of some of these dogs wagging their tails to the last are truly heartbreaking. And all for a strategy that will not ultimately prove effective in stopping a rabies outbreak.

If you can write a polite letter to the city's mayor requesting an end to the cull, please do. If you can contribute financially to this campaign to end the cull, please do. If you can contribute to their education campaigns to help prevent this sort of thing from happening in the first place, please do. If you can volunteer with their SF office, please do. The impact may not be local, but it is potentially huge in scale; an estimated 10,000 cats are killed and eaten in Guandong province alone each DAY.

tank
Nationally Certified Massage Therapist & Health Educator
Acupuncture Intern Level II, AIMC Berkeley

PS: Please consider making your formulas without animal products, including bile (dan) preparations. As there currently are no animal welfare laws on the books in China, animal products coming from there are pretty suspect. Please consider what you may be supporting without even realizing and be mindful in your choices.

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Permalink Reply by tank on June 15, 2009 at 8:11pm: Please write a polite asking for an immediate stop to the Hanzhong cull and an end to cruel dog culls throughout China. Please also ask that the Chinese authorities work with Animals Asia to introduce effective, lasting and humane anti-rabies measures.

US Chinese Embassy address:
Ambassador: Mr. Zhou Wenzhong
Minister: Mr. Xie Feng
Tel Operator: +1-202-3282500, 3282501, 3282502
Email: chinaembassy_us@fmprc.gov.cn
Website: http://us.china-embassy.org/eng/

Letter writing idea here: http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?UID=37LQRCR7NP4&tkn=m10484...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by tank on June 15, 2009 at 9:55pm: My letter to the Ambassador:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I cannot begin to express to you the depth of my sadness upon hearing news this morning of Hanzhong’s brutal dog culling efforts; I am paralyzed by grief.

As a student of Traditional Chinese Medicine here in the United States, I have developed a deep love and appreciation for the wisdom and beauty inherent in so much of Chinese culture and language. It therefore tears my spirit in two to know that activities such as this cull are happening in China, and with the hand of the government behind them.

This campaign will bring only pain and blood and tears, and no one will benefit; the rabies problem will continue to worsen as culling is an ineffective method of control, just as killing sparrows did not save crops in earlier decades. It chases a distant branch, leaving the root intact.

Please hear me when I say that to Western eyes such barbaric acts serve only to make China look like an ignorant, uneducated backwater – which it most certainly is not. But it appears this way to the majority of people here upon hearing such news, you must understand.

China has such a vast cultural wealth to offer the world, but it shall never be fully embraced until it treats its animals, people, and natural resources with decency and respect. I urge you to call off this cull, to prevent others from taking place, and to work with animal welfare organizations both locally and at the international level to humanely control China’s domestic animal populations and to bolster vaccination percentages. Both China’s public health and the animals will benefit from this, as will China’s image abroad.

The world is watching, ladies and gentlemen, and today many of us are in mourning for the animals, for the families who have lost beloved companions, and even for our brothers and sisters carrying out the brutality whose humanity is lost with every blow.

Please see reason and think better of this. I beg you, stop the cull.

Sincerely,

K. ‘tank’ Conner
Nationally Certified Massage Therapist & Health Educator, Private Practice, Berkeley CA
Acupuncture Intern Level II, Acupuncture & Integrative Medicine College, Berkeley CA; ▶ Reply to This