Taiwan's Stray Dog Crisis Continues Following 'No-Kill' Policy
It has been six years since Taiwan implemented a "no-kill" policy at shelters to stop animals sheltering there from being put down. However, the new regulation also creates new problems.
Transcript
00:00 [Music]
00:14 Dogs being dragged into a room to be put down in an animal shelter.
00:18 This heartbreaking footage is from a documentary that shook Taiwan a decade ago, called "Twelve Nights."
00:24 It's a film about stray dogs that end up in shelters.
00:27 Back then, homeless animals could only stay in these facilities for around 12 days.
00:32 If no one adopted or claimed them in that time, the shelter would euthanize them.
00:36 In 2017, the country implemented the no-kill policy, so these animals here don't need to face such a countdown.
00:54 However, not all eye-hacking was a decision.
00:57 They say that it was made too fast without considering any consequences.
01:00 Banqiao Animal Shelter is one of the eight public facilities in New Taipei City.
01:10 It's home to about 200 stray dogs.
01:13 Though the shelter has seen an increase in adoptions, it's not enough.
01:17 The number of dogs at the facility has not gone down since the no-kill policy came into effect.
01:22 That policy has led to overpopulation in shelters and dogs staying there for years.
01:27 A-Bao Mei here has been living at the Banqiao shelter for six years now.
01:31 Government figures from 2018 show there were around 146,000 stray dogs in the country.
01:48 That number grew to just under 160,000 in 2022.
01:53 But Taiwan's public animal shelters only have a total capacity of 8,400.
01:58 As the number of stray dogs increases, so does the number of problems,
02:02 like more traffic accidents and more attacks on protected wild animals.
02:06 When a stray dog lives in the wild,
02:09 it may go into a forest or a wild area.
02:14 The wild animals that overlap with it may be attacked or their habitat destroyed.
02:22 In central Taiwan's Nantou, one wildlife rescue center says
02:26 over 280 wild animals have been killed or injured by stray dogs since 2018.
02:32 The biggest impact is the "sand-throwing claw".
02:35 Over the past six years, more than 130 "sand-throwing claws" have been attacked by stray dogs.
02:42 One CIDA group is working to prevent stray dogs from breeding,
02:45 so there's no need to kill them.
02:47 Faith for Animals operates across much of northern Taiwan,
02:50 catching strays, neutering them, then releasing them back to where they found them.
02:55 The foundation has spayed over 10,000 female strays,
02:58 or around 80% of the local population.
03:00 This has led to fewer puppies ending up in animal shelters.
03:03 But the foundation says it's still not enough.
03:06 It's really necessary to expand the project all over Taiwan,
03:11 because Taiwan is a very small place.
03:14 We do need more workers because it's a very difficult factor of our project.
03:20 The number of strays across Taiwan is still climbing,
03:23 but efforts to slow the growth are showing results.
03:26 Groups like Faith for Animals believe that it's more humane
03:30 to prevent the animals from entering the world than it is to take them out of it.
03:34 Klein Wong, Kamishihun Zanichi for Taiwan Plus.
03:38 I can't go back!