Rabies fear prompts China dog slaughter

Tens of thousands of dogs have been slaughtered in an anti-rabies crackdown in China, with local police officers grabbing pets from their owners and beating them with sticks, a report has confirmed.

The five-day massacre in Mouding county, in Yunnan province, was triggered by a desire to reduce the estimated 2,000 human deaths from rabies each year, according to The Scotsman newspaper of Scotland.

The reports have prompted the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to cancel all orders of its products that would have been made in China.

"We are urging everyone to actively boycott anything from China, given the bludgeoning killing of thousands of dogs and examples of cruelty towards animals," said Ingrid Newkirk, a PETA official.

The group estimated its orders were worth around $300,000.

PETA estimated about 50,000 dogs were killed, including 4,000 that had been vaccinated against rabies during the late-July attacks.

The nation's official Xinhua news agency said in order "to keep this horrible disease from people, we decided to kill the dogs."

Owners taking their dogs for walks saw them jerked away and bludgeoned, and other owners were offered a token fee of a few cents to kill their own dogs.

About 360 of the county's 200,000 residents have suffered dog bites this year, and three, including a four-year-old child, have died of rabies, the reports said.

Even the official newspaper Legal Daily called the killings "extraordinarily crude" and "cold-blooded."

In an editorial, the publication of the central government's Politics and Law Committee said it shows government failed to protect people from rabies in the first place. The editorial suggested an alternative would have been to vaccinate the dogs.

PETA also notes that dogs and cats – and other animals – routinely are raised in horrific conditions, then bludgeoned or strangled, to supple the fur industry in China.

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