Fast-rising s/n rate may save Taiwan national no-kill scheme from collapse

Dog & cat populations still rising at 5% per year,  but high spay/neuter compliance suggests leveling off is near

TAIPEI, Taiwan––A rapidly rising spay/neuter rate may be overtaking annual 5% increases in the Taiwanese dog and cat populations just in time to save the eight-year-old national “no-kill” animal control policy from catastrophic collapse.

A 70% spay/neuter rate is necessary to stabilize an animal population.  As the spay/neuter rate rises beyond 70%,  the population tends to decline over time.

The most recent annual survey data from the Taiwan Ministry of Agriculture,  “showed that the sterilization rate of pet dogs was 68.9%,  an increase from 66.4% in 2021.

“The rate among pet cats was 82.8%,  increasing from 84.6%,”  wrote Taiwan News staff reporter Wo Po-Hsuan on June 3,  2024.

Pet-keeping rising even faster than dog & cat population

“The ministry’s data,  based on a telephone survey last year,  show that 28.3% of households in Taiwan have pets,  a 6.7% increase from 2021,”  Wo Po-Hsuan recounted.

Registration compliance is also up,   Wo Po-Hsuan noted.

“The pet dog registration rate was 70.6% last year,”  Wo Po-Hsuan reported,  “an increase from 69.5% in 2021.

“58.4% of cats were registered,  up from 50.7% in 2021.

“National regulations require pet dogs to be microchipped and registered,”  Wo Po-Hsuan explained,  “while only Taipei requires pet cats to be registered.”

180,000 street dogs

The spay/neuter and registration numbers suggest that pet-keeping in Taiwan is moving in the direction of responsible care-taking even faster than the dog and cat populations are growing.

But for that,  other Ministry of Agriculture findings might have spelled doom for the no-kill policy,  which by all accounts was rushed into effect with insufficient preparation to cope with dog and cat populations that had long been out of control.

Since 2021,  according to the Minister of Agriculture data reported by Wo Po-Hsuan,  the Taiwanese population of owned dogs has increased from 1.23 million to 1.48 million,  with about 180,000 unowned dogs roaming at large.

The owned cat population meanwhile leaped from 87,810 to 1.31 million,  with an unknown feral cat population.

Dogs menace rare pangolins

As many as 1,000 feral dogs and 400 feral cats are believe to be roaming 44-square-mile Yangmingshan National Park,  the largest of the nine Taiwanese national parks,  and one of the few places where the effects of free-roaming dogs and cats have been quantified.

Reports that dog attacks might have outstripped poaching for scales as a threat to endangered pangolins emerged in September 2022.

Pangolin population surveillance begun in 2018 found that dog attacks accounted for more than half of all documented injuries to pangolins,  typically including missing or mutilated tails,  the most vulnerable part of the armadillo-like animals,  whose response to attack is curling into a ball.

Muntjacs also at risk from dogs

“The number of dog-attack victims treated by the Wild One Wildlife Rescue Center in Taitung County’s Chihshang Township,”  Taipei Times contributing reporter Steven Crook wrote on March 27,  2024,  “has grown steadily,  from five in 2020 to 84 last year.”

“Wild One’s front-line experience suggests that Reeves’s muntjacs and Formosan pangolins are among the animals most frequently harmed by dogs,  while all kinds of small and medium-sized birds are vulnerable to feline hunters,”  Crook continued.

A 2021-2022 survey,  Crook said,  “indicated that the number of Reeves’s muntjacs in the Shoushan area had declined by more than 90% over a period of 10 years,  with dogs being the main reason for this precipitous drop.  With the muntjac population having fallen to a mere 50 to 63 individuals,  there is a real risk of local extinction.”

Leopard cats

Dogs are also “believed to be responsible for the deaths of seven of the 14 leopard cats the Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute had been tracking since 2017.  Estimates of Taiwan’s leopard cat population range from 400 to 600,  so this is a significant loss,”  Crook continued.

The dog population in the Taiwanese national parks,  as in the rest of Taiwan,  is controlled by neuter/return,  but the sterilized dogs have a two-year survival rate of just 11.5% from 2016 to 2018,  according to in National Tsing Hua University life sciences professor Yen Shih-ching.

The Taiwanese legislature,  the Legislative Yuan,  on January 24, 2015 adopted 25 revisions to the 1998 national Animal Protection Act,  beginning with a ban on killing impounded dogs,  to take effect two years later,  at the start of 2017.

            (See Taiwan adopts plan to become no-kill nation by 2017.)

Started from bad place

The Taiwanese legislation was modeled after dog laws already effect in India since 2003,  and in Turkey and Costa Rica since 2004.

As in those nations, euthanasia continued to be permitted for incurably ill or injured dogs.

The Taiwanese legislation,  as in India,  Turkey,  and Costa Rica,  was combined with the introduction of a subsidized national spay/neuter program.

The 33 public animal shelters serving the 22 Taiwanese administrative districts,  with just 140 employees among them,  in 2015 euthanized 10,900 animals.

Another 8,600 died in custody,  from disease,  fighting,  and neglect,  the latter an apparent cultural holdover from the conditions of more than 20 years earlier.

Life Conservationist Foundation

At that time the import or possession of pentobarbital was illegal,  and “euthanasia for free” by starving dogs to death,  was commonly practiced by poorly educated pound workers who believed that actively participating in killing an animal was contrary to the teachings of Buddhism.

The Life Conservationist Foundation,  begun by Buddhist monk Wu Hung,  took a leading role in changing that.

As of the January 1,  2017 deadline for animal control in Taiwan to go no-kill,  only 30% of the estimated 1.7 million dogs in the island nation had been sterilized,  not even half the number necessary to stabilize the population––and about two-thirds of the dogs were unowned,  free-roaming quasi-feral street dogs.

There was no data pertaining to cats.

Vet leader Jian Zhicheng killed herself

Worse,  Taoyuan City pound veterinarian Jian Zhicheng,  a leader in efforts to reform shelter conditions,  promote adoptions,  and expand spay/neuter access,  despaired of reaching the no-kill goal,  due to lack of help and resources.

Under intense activist criticism for continuing to euthanize unadoptable dogs and cats,  Jian Zhicheng on May 5,  2016  killed herself with euthanasia drugs.

(See Taiwan shelter director suicide illustrates global crisis.)

Overcrowded

By November 2018,  Taipei Times staff reporter Lin Chia-nan found,  eight public shelters,  in Taipei,  Tainan,  Taoyuan,  and Chiayi City,  and Hsinchu,  Nantou,  Yunlin and Pingtung counties were housing animals in excess of capacity.

“The Taipei shelter housed a total of 1,120 animals,  almost double its maximum capacity of 610,”  according to Ministry of Agriculture figures,  Lin Chia-nan wrote in February 2019.

“Shelters in Taichung and Kaohsiung,  as well as Chiayi,  Penghu and Kinmen counties,  were at more than 90% capacity,”  Lin Chi-nan continued.

But––despite reports of jeopardy to wildlife from dogs and cats left to roam at large,  rather than being impounded into the overcrowded shelters––public safety was apparently not believed to be in jeopardy.

Fatal dog attack

That changed on January 21,  2023,  on Chinese New Year’s Eve,  when a 21-year-old woman identified only as “Ms. Huang” was reportedly killed and eaten by her own five starving dogs,  while her boyfriend was at work.

Why “Ms. Huang” had five starving dogs,  and what sort of dogs they were,  was not evident.

A much larger hue-and-cry arose when in November 2023 visiting Japanese singer Chihiro Ayase,  of the Tone Jewel girl group, posted to social media that she was bitten in the leg after being chased by two stray dogs in Ximending,  a district of Taipei.

“I feel certain I would have been killed”

“We went out on the street at night and were followed by two black dogs,  which started to chase me and bit me on the thigh,”  Chihiro Ayase wrote.  “I fell down. It was very frightening,  but I got free and ran to where there was more traffic to avoid being attacked again.

“If I had not gotten away,  I feel certain I would have been killed,”  Chihiro Ayase said.

“Fortunately,  concert organizers swiftly took me to hospital and were helpful throughout.”

Ministry of Agriculture’s Animal Welfare Department chief Chiang Chuan-wen responded that reported biting incidents had declined from 3.14 per month in 2019 to 1.53 per month in 2023.

Both numbers would be impossibly low for even a small town in the U.S.

Taiwanese actress defends dangerous dogs in China

Meanwhile,  in October 2023,  Taiwanese actress Joe Chen,  44,  reportedly created a furor in mainland China for posting to Weibo,  the Chinese equivalent to Facebook,  in defense of a Rottweiler who mauled a two-year-old girl in Chengdu and a dog named Xiao Huang who attacked a woman who bent down to pet Xiao Huang in Jiangsu.

“Joe is not the only celeb to receive negative backlash on the topic,  with Li Xiaran,  Liu Cong,  Viann Zhang,  and Li Na all weighing in on the topic,”  observed Bryan Wong for Today Online.

“Popular Chinese actress,  Lan Xi,  40, was forced to delete her video about protecting strays,  while host Yang Di,  37,  had his Weibo account banned after posting a video urging the public not to torture and kill dogs,”  Wong alleged.

Since China has a huge and growing animal advocacy sector,  the images rather than the message were likely at issue.

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