[quote=“mod lang”]One species is “cuter” that the other. There is no rational explanation for why we do our best to cull locusts and cockroaches, which are living beings, but cringe at culling seals and ferals cats & dogs. Oh right, one are cute furry mammals and the other are disgusting little insects. People need to get over their sentimentality.[/quote]You are comparing insects with domesticated animals. Maybe some of us are quite sentimental about this, you’re right but I think you’e the opposite, perhaps cold about it. Maybe there’s a good middle here. CNR? Legislations to cut down on breeding, legislations against animal cruelty, etc? None of these other options are considered here so I think it’s fair to be sentimental about it. There are things that can be done other than culling those who once were our friends…
I think that if we domesticate animals, we become responsible for them. Domesticating an animals makes it dependant and unable to fend for itself.
Why in hell would we cull the dogs and still allow breeders to do what they do for example?
You guys here in favor of culling, do you know any species being culled and massively bred at the same time? On a small island 700km in lenght, yet with so many people.
Are there cockroaches bred for profit? How about seals?
[quote=“bobepine”]I think that if we domesticate animals, we become responsible for them. Domesticating an animals makes it dependant and unable to fend for itself.
Why in hell would we cull the dogs and still allow breeders to do what they do for example?
You guys here in favor of culling, do you know any species being culled and massively bred at the same time? On a small island 700km in lenght, yet with so many people.
Are there cockroaches bred for profit? How about seals?
Perhaps, but I suspect the real difference lies in man’s determination to eliminate the animals.
Putting out poison, for example, is a lazy, and therefore ineffective, way to cull; too much has to happen for it to work:
The animal has to find the poisoned food.
The animal has to eat the poisoned food.
The animal must ingest enough poison to kill it.
The buffalo hunt of the nineteenth century, on the other hand, is arguably the most effective cull in history. A species numbering in the millions reduced to near extinction in a relatively short time.
Absolutely, but buffalo are herd animals, whereas dog aren’t, so the few you miss will breed and breed. Maybe (I don’t know) buffalo have a longer breeding cycle than dogs, too. Or cats - I just realised we are also talking about cats.
Do you know why poison and other such inhumane methods were used in Taiwan? Taiwanese are very reluctant, for superstitious reasons, to kill an animal. The logic was that poisoning wasn’t killing the dogs; they ate the posioned food, therefore killing themselves. Drowning? The person just lowered the dogs into the water - they are responsible for their own deaths if they don’t swim. That is why you still see cases of animals left to eat each other in certain ‘shelters’; not taking adequate care is the easiest way to let the animals ‘kill themselves’ or be killed by other animals.
Of course, it’s also a result of poor standards, but the ‘hands-off’ approach has been popular for a long time here, as it removes direct blame from the perpertator, therefore saving him or her from being haunted by the dead animals’ souls. It’s also one reason why animals are dumped and left to their own devises.
I really don’t have an opinion one way or the other about culling. For me, animals are tools.
Cats eat mice and with no mice there are no rattlesnakes in the flower beds. Cats are a great first line of defense against snakes. Every see a cat when it spots a snake? Best anti-snake tool ever made.
When there are no police within a half-an-hour of your place, vigilant dogs are also a great tool. That and a 12 gauge full of buckshot.
I do understand that the topic of culling is distasteful to some but I believe that the topic can/should/must be discussed freely. It is an option and I believe that all options should be at least considered before passing judgement.
I love animals. Back home I’ve got a couple of wolf-hybrids back, a cat, and a couple of dozen birds. Having had wolves, I’m not currently inclined to go back to dogs; and there’s no way I’d import one of those magnificent animals to this climate: they’re happiest at -5C in the snow.
That said, much love animals, having seen the condition of hordes of strays in Taiwan, I’ve often thought, “God dammit, take care of your animals properly, or put them out of its misery.”
CNR, while not the intuitive solution, sounds good. What kind of success rate do you need to realize before there’s a real reduction in the number of strays, or is that even feasible? If you get 90% of the strays, the remaining 10% plus the ongoing stream of abandoned pets, I assume, would replace CNR’ed dogs as they naturally die off. It seems to me that CNR might be a good means of maintaining the stray population within the carrying capacity of the environment, of reducing the numbers of starving animals and perhaps of lessen incidences of disease as there will be fewer starving, and therefore weakened, animals transmitting disease. That’s all to the good. But is it likely to result in a readily noticeable reduction in the total stray population, or will the population simply stabilize with a healthier population, fewer births and less frequent deaths?
Chickens, pigs, cattle, goats, fish farms…those animals are both bred and culled on a massive scale. Most people, aside from those who are vegetarian out of moral reasons, don’t seem to have much of a problem with it.
When it comes to behavior towards other species, humans definitely treat them heirarchically. Like all animals, the biggest instinctive taboo is killing one of your own kind, and from there humans’ hearts instinctively react closest to our closest animal cousins. We feel guilty about mistreating fellow mammals because they are so similar to us, and we can feel that. Reptiles, we feel an instinctive revulsion, and have no instinctive feelings of love towards them. When you see a little dog or cat, the reason it is so cute and makes us go “aww!” is because it reminds us of a cuddly human baby, and we instinctively feel motherly towards it. I mean, anyone who has gone hunting and fishing knows that there’s a difference in how your heart feels when you catch a fish compared to shooting a deer. Logically speaking, there’s no big difference between killing a fish and killing a deer, but it sure feels different, doesn’t it? It’s difficult for most people to feel genuine affection for a non-mammalian pet, and pretty easy to get attached to fellow mammal, even pigs. Charlotte’s Web wouldn’t have worked if it were about turtle soup.
The magic figure is 67 percent, backed up with an aggressive public education program. Desexing two thirds of a population will cause the density to level off - any more and the numbers start to go down. It’s the same for vaccination, as diseases among populations can be eradicated once two thirds have been vaccinated.
So there’s not a point at which the population begins to fall, and a population decline is actually unwanted because that opens habitat to still fertile animals? Or is a population decline a factor of public awareness and alternative programs in the very long term?
Beijing have started their cleanup/culling of stray dogs before the Olympics.
WARNING: Ugly pictures of dog getting beaten to death with sticks and tossed into a truck.
Very long term. It starts to fall once you have desexed more than 67 percent, but gradually. Naturally. Over time. The more you desex, the more rapid the decline, but still you will only notice differences over 7 to 10 years.
The idea is to desex a small population, say those dwelling around vendors at the mountain top, then broaden the area, and so on.
It does need public awareness to make it work, though the area you are working on will levcel off, new dogs dumped will be forced into neighbouring areas, so the population of your area is stable, and neighbouring areas increase less, as their neighbours are now sterile.
Hope that makes sense. In India, they are aiming for a marked decrease over ten years, which I think is very realistic.
[quote=“X3M”]Someone (I don’t remember who) asked about the development of development of strays in Taiwan. Here is an answer to that:
From Taipei Times Apr. 29, 2006
It seems culling/killing/destroying in combination with adoption, education and spay/neuter is also a pretty efficient combination.
Wonder when they started with spay/neutering?[/quote]
Stats, stats, stats.
While I do agree that improvements have been made, I know for a fact that the adoption figure posted above is at least double the reality. More than 80 percent of the 200 or so dogs taken to Neihu every week, for example, are killed or die of diseases contracted in the ‘shelter’.
Just from what I see, I would question the 180,000 figure for strays.
And from the number of strays we pick up without ID chips (almost all), I would find it hard to believe that half of all pets are now registered. Of the 130 or so animals that passed through our care in the last 15 months, only a couple had ID chips.
I met Jack Sheu at the Asia for Animals conference in Singapore, and he did come across as very clued up on the subject, and he also seemed genuinly concerned that the welfare of all animals in Taiwan be improved. I just wonder where the figures come from. For certain, matters have improved in recent years, and I do applaud the Taiwan and local governments for those improvements. Let’s just keep that ball rolling …
The reason you see fewer strays in Taipei compared to ten years ago is that garbage is no longer left out on street corners for collection. Culling is inefficient; reducing the reproduction rate is the only method that works, and that involves education (re. spaying and neutering), CNR, and removing food sources that can sustain a large stray population.
Furthermore, the animals being ‘culled/killed/destroyed’ are the friendly ones who are easily caught by the dogcatchers. By removing these animals from the stray gene pool, you are increasing the number of more feral, unfriendly, and aggressive dogs out there, who will breed more antisocial dogs. Clearly, this is an erroneous way of combating whatever ‘problem’ you perceive exists from having a free-roaming canine population.
Do your homework: ‘culling/killing/destroying’ was the policy that India aggressively pursued for over 100 years in efforts to reduce the number of people being bitten by rabid dogs; it didn’t work - CNR has worked. India now as long-term CNR/education programs that will eradicate rabies, for the most part, from the free-roaming canine population and therefore the humans who share those animals’ environment.
First of all, I just want to make it clear that I am not pro killing stray animals, but sometimes I think killing some of them is better than prolong their pain and agony, and thereby free up resources to take care of animals with better prospects for survival or adoption.
Still, I question the blind trust in one, and only one, apporach to solve any problem - CNR in this case. Stats, stats, you say to discredit the figures given in Taipei Times, what is the report from Calcutta based on if not statisitcs?
Another poster mentioned killing of wild animals, but was put in place with “but the stray dogs/cats are/were pets”. The offspring of stray animals are born wild, and have never been anyone’s pet. Why can they not be killed/controlled/culled as well as the cute kangoroos and other “wild” animals?
Sorry to say, but the topic is only of peripheral interest, so I am not going to study the topic very deeply, just give my gut feelings.
Now, I have to mention that I am a great fan of Animals Taiwan, and think you are doing an awsome job to make Taiwan a better place for both animals and humans.
I think you present your thoughts very well X3M. I don’t think it’s blind trust. Not for me anyways. I think that you are asking some very solid questions to which I don’t have the answers. Statistics are questionable and while it may seem like blind faith to you, I like to call it hope.
Hope for more compassion and a better understanding of our responsibilities. Hope for less suffering, less killing, less non-sense. Like I posted earlier, culling would maybe make some sense if breeders were controlled. People abandon up to 10 000 pets yearly in Taiwan. Pet shops and breeders are making profits while really all they are doing is profiting from the life of many animals who just end-up on the street. CNR is the compassionate approach and that alone makes it the best approach in order to raise awarness, compassion and understanding which is what places like Taiwan really need.
Will CNR really help in the end? I sure hope so because I sure ain’t willing to kill any of my friends.
One immediate difference to me between dogs born in the wild of domestic stock and kangaroos born in the wild of wild stock is that the dogs, even though born in the wild, will welcome human friendship and companionship.
Canines and humans came to an agreement hundreds of thousands of years ago regarding our relationship. IMO, Man is not living up to his end of the bargain.
How can it be easier to kill than doing the CNR on the friendly ones than the wilder ones? In both cases you will have to get close enough to catch them?
Bobpine:
Now, that makes more sense for me. Approach the problem from several sides, with an arsenal of tools.
Tigerman:
[quote]…One immediate difference to me between dogs born in the wild of domestic stock and kangaroos born in the wild of wild stock is that the dogs, even though born in the wild, will welcome human friendship and companionship.
Canines and humans came to an agreement hundreds of thousands of years ago regarding our relationship. IMO, Man is not living up to his end of the bargain…[/quote]
So, you consider all dogs, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, xxth generation removed from the domestic stock, will welcome human friendship and companionship?
I have no experience in that matter, but I doubt it.
The way I see it is that some of the stray animals are wilder and less fit for human companionship than others, and that these are more difficult to catch for CNR, so an option should be to shoot/kill them to give place for the CNR animals in the habitat.
General education of the population and licensing of breeders and pet shops are important, and chip should be mandatory with harsh punishment for those pet-shops/breeders who sell un-chipped animals, and for the owners who dump their pets.
I know you don’t agree, but wouldn’t a 3 level approach be more efficient than only CNR:
Healthy/minor problems and social animals are put up for adoption.
Healthy/minor problems but difficult to handle/aggressive animals get the CNR treatment.
Sick and “wild” animals are killed
This approach is cruel, but would probably free up more resources to handle the problem, treat and give more animals a better life.
Of course, the root cause is in the education of pet-owners and to stop the supply to the stray population, but public education campaigns takes a lot of resources.
:bravo: 
