I am OUTRAGED. I have found several articles today that are reporting on what is happening to cats in China right now. They are being sent to Feline Death Camps due to the government using scare tactics. According to the Associated Newspapers, LTD, the Chinese government has been telling its citizens that cats are responsible for giving people SARS which is a respiratory disease that can be fatal. They are using this scare tactic by telling people they must put their cats outside to be picked up for special collection teams or their families might contract the deadly disease. Pregnant women are told by their doctors that they must "get rid of" the cat because "it will be bad for the baby."
Not only that, but two school teachers recently beat six stray cats to death with sticks when the cats showed up looking for food at the school play yard. They say, "We did it out of love for the children. We were worried the cats might harm them." The way they killed the cats was to lay out tuna as bait for the very hungry cats (two of which were pregnant females) inside of a cage. Then when the cats entered the cage, they beat them to death with sticks. The teachers say, "We were very worried the children might try to stroke them and that the cats might scratch them or pass on diseases. We had to get rid of the cats and this was the only way to do it." The. Only. Way. My. Butthole. I am sorry if that was vulgar, but this makes me very very angry.
This is not completely the teachers fault, the government has scared them into believing these lies that we are bad animals.
So to take care of the Cat Problem and to clean up the area so that Bejing looks welcoming for the Olympics, cats are being rounded up and sent to these death camps.
I am sorry to have to show you such a terrible thing, but this is what is happening to cats in over 12 death camps in Beijing.
Yan Qi was allowed access into one of the camps. She runs a cat sanctuary and this is what she had to say, "When we went inside, we saw about 70 cats being kept in cages stacked one on top of the other in two tiny rooms. Disease spreads quickly among them and they die slowly in agony and distress. The government won't even do the cats the kindness of giving them lethal injections when they become sick. They just wait for them to die. It is the abandoned pets that suffer the most and die the soonest. They relied so much on their owners that they can't cope with the new environment. Most refuse to eat or drink and get sick more quickly than the feral cats."
One woman, Hu Yuan has been an angel for the 250 abandoned cats that she has graciously taken into her small HOME. She says that 100 out of these 250 cats sleep in her bedroom with her, and ASTONISHINGLY she has not died from any disease! Imagine that! She cannot allow any of the cats to go outdoors because they will be rounded up and taken away. She says, "If I don't take them in, the government will kill them.People believe what the government tells them and that is why they are abandoning more and more family pets."
Yuan goes on to say, "the problem could be traced back to former president Jiang Zemin for the crackdown. He didn't like dogs so he decided to have dogs killed. But there was a bad reaction from the foreign media and they were pressured to stop. Now they have stopped killing dogs but the new victims are cats. "
One "lucky" cat that was saved. Clearly the conditions that these poor cats are being held in are absolutely deplorable. This image is courtesy of the Daily Mail.You may read many articles about this by googling "feline death camps in china."
I am so sad about this, I wonder what I can do to help.
Putting my paws together in purrayer,
Cecil
