How much longer must we crawl before President Ma hears our message?

Recently, hundreds of animal right’s activists painstakingly crawled along Ketagalan Avenue, the main street leading to the Office of the President, to bring attention towards the plight of Taiwan’s animals. Activists have accumulated over 10,000 contributions to a ‘postcard petition’, which demands the setting up of an Animal Right’s Department to appropriately deal with animal right’s issues.  The ‘postcard petition’ will be delivered to the Office of the President in the hope that the president will place proper importance on the animal protection system.

 
The vast majority of Taiwan’s stray cats and dogs have come about after being abandoned by their owners. According to current policy for dealing with such animals, in only a short time after being caught by hygiene teams, failure to be fostered or claimed by the owners means that the animals cannot escape a fate of death.    According to independent statistics, over the last eight years the government has culled over one million strays. Animal right’s activists expressed their hopes that through the establishment of a full-time animal right’s department, and the introduction of chip implants on all pets, owners will be made to take full responsibility, from purchasing and raising the animals – and if need be, all the way to their subsequent capture and culling.

How much longer must we crawl before President Ma hears our message?

URL:http://www.peopo.org/news/85596

(以下為中英文對照)

「還要我們爬多久 苦爬送信給馬總統」記者會

照片

上百位動物保育人士，日前聚集在台灣總統府前凱達格蘭大道上，跪地苦爬；希望以低姿態體驗動物的生活，並以一人一信連署寫明信片方式，集結了上萬張的明信片要求成立動物保育司；專責處理動物保護事項，並將連署的萬張明信片送進總統，希望總統能夠重視台灣動物保護的制度。

台灣大部分的流浪狗流浪貓都是來自於飼主的棄養，目前對於流浪動物的處理政策是請清潔隊加以捕捉。一段時間後如果沒有人來認領或是認養，這些被抓到的流浪動物就難逃死亡的命運，根據民間統計台灣過去八年來，就撲殺了100萬隻的流浪貓狗。保育人士表示，希望透過專職的動物保護司的成立，落實晶片植入，讓養寵物的飼主負起責任，從源頭管理取代捕捉撲殺。

為擴大服務範圍，自2010年4月起，PeoPo每周精選三則公民報導及相關活動與發展，翻譯成英文摘要，讓更多關心台灣公民新聞的朋友，瞭解台灣在地大小事。