Amid concern that dogs are being trained to hunt and kill stray cats in Taipei, the Taipei City Government yesterday said that it has received 85 such reports this year.
Officials said they are checking the reports to see if any of them overlap.
Animal protection volunteers said people have been spotted taking dogs into lanes and alleys in Taipei on rainy nights and when a cat is targeted, the dogs attack, inflicting fatal injuries.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
The volunteers said that after the cats were killed, they heard the sound of a whistle, at which point the dogs ran off.
The dogs did not bark throughout the attacks, making the volunteers suspect that the animals have had their vocal cords removed and have been trained to kill, and were not simply chasing the cats.
Police said that when they were investigating one case in Xinyi District (信義) in September, they found a man surnamed Chen (陳), 55, surrounded by dogs.
Chen said that he was a cleaner and that the cat was chased because it came too close when he was feeding the stray dogs. He denied purposely setting the dogs on the cat.
The police sent the case to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for investigation, while the Animal Protection Office rounded up six dog “suspects” and sent them to an animal shelter.
“They will be examined by veterinarians to determine whether they have been trained to hunt, which could help shed some light on the reported abuses,” the Animal Protection Office said.
Instances of dogs killing cats, mostly feral, have been reported in Neihu (內湖), Datong (大同), Zhongshan (中山) and Xinyi districts in the past two months, it said.
The office said that due to limited government staff and resources, the authorities have to rely on the public to solve a lot of cases. It urged the public to report any evidence they have to the 1999 Citizen Hotline.
Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said that the government should not treat the reports lightly, adding that if the dogs were to start attacking people, it would create panic.
Chen Yu-min said that people who unleash dogs to kill cats are in violation of the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法), and if found guilty they can be jailed for up to one year and fined NT$100,000 to NT$1 million (US$3,178 to US$31,778).
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