China Offered $100K to Stop Slaughtering Dogs

Following global outrage about the mass killings of thousands of dogs in China in recent weeks, the Humane Society on Wednesday offered to give $100,000 to China if the government will promise to immediately stop their mass slaughters in areas where humans have died from rabies. The disease has been on the rise in China in recent years, due in part to newly prosperous families buying dogs as pets. But rather than the government enacting measures to prevent outbreaks, they have instead been killing dogs by the thousands, usually right in front of owners.

The money offered by the Humane Society would be targeted toward helping to set up a rabies control program in Jining, a city where officials last week slaughtered thousands of dogs. In Jining, a city in the coastal province of Shandong, 16 people have died from rabies during the last eight months. Last month officials in Mouding, a county in the southern province of Yunnan, clubbed to death more than 50,000 dogs after three people in the area died from rabies. Other cities in China have also conducted mass killings over the past few months.

The killings have resulted in unusually harsh criticism from Chinese state media. The official newspaper Legal Daily published an editorial that described the killings as "an "extraordinarily crude, cold-blooded and lazy way for the government to deal with epidemic disease." The main Xinhua News Agency said in a separate editorial that the slaughter was "the only way out of a bad situation." The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called for a boycott of Chinese products. Public outcry has even prompted calls for boycotts of the Olympics.

The Beijing Morning Post reported on Wednesday that one Chinese city may be planning to lead the way to a change in policy. The city of Qingdao, a major port city in Shandong province, is planning to vaccinate 40,000 dogs between now and the end of September. The newspaper said that any owners who do not comply will be fined.

The Humane Society said that the money offer is conditional upon China agreeing to stop the mass dog slaughters, as well as agreeing to accept the group’s help in establishing a nationwide rabies vaccination program. "There are far better ways of addressing rabies control to promote the safety of your citizens, the good reputation of China and the welfare of dogs," Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society of the United States, said in an open letter to China's ambassador in Washington.

An official from the media affairs office of the Ministry of Agriculture didn’t comment on the offer and wanted first to see a Chinese translation of the Humane Society’s statement.