By SIMON PERRY - More by this author » Last updated at 12:01pm on 10th March 2008
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Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.
Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.
Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.
The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.
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Doomed: Terrified cats crammed
tightly into cages are hauled off to a meat market in
Guangzhou
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Cat owners, terrified by the
disease warning, are dumping their pets in the streets to be picked
up by special collection teams.
Paranoia is so intense that six stray cats -including two pregnant
females - were beaten to death with sticks by teachers at a Beijing
kindergarten, who feared they might pass illnesses to the
children.
China's leaders are convinced that animals pose a serious urban
health risk and may have contributed to the outbreak of SARS - a
deadly respiratory virus - in 2003.
But the crackdown on cats is seen by animal campaigners as just one
of a number of extreme measures being taken by communist leaders to
ensure that its capital appears clean, green and welcoming during
the Olympics.
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Refuge: Campaigner Hu Yuan, 80, with some of the 250 cats she has
taken in at her Beijing home
Animal welfare groups in China
are already protesting, but their members fear punishment from the
authorities.
Officials say people can adopt animals from the 12 cat pounds set
up around the city, but welfare groups say they are almost
impossible to get inside and believe few cats survive.
One cat lovers' group negotiated the release of 30 pets from one of
the compounds in Shahe, north-west Beijing, but said they were in
such a pitiful condition that half of them died within days of
their release.
"These cats are being left to die. It is very inhumane," said the
group's founder Yan Qi, who runs a sanctuary for cats.
cat prison
A rescued pet showing clear signs of
disease
"People don't want to keep cats
in Beijing any more so they abandon them or send them to the
compounds.
"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."
Ms Yan's group has now been denied access to the pounds. "We do not
believe any of the cats that go in there survive," she said. "They
are like death camps."
Ms Yan said there was another reason for people abandoning their
cats - the 200 yuan (£14) fee they face if they want to have their
pets neutered and tagged.
"We have tried to negotiate with the government to stop the
round-ups and to introduce cut-price neutering services so that
people can afford to keep their pets but they won't listen to us,"
she said.
"They are not thinking about the cats. They just want to get
results in the quickest way possible, by clearing as many cats from
the city as they can."
Retired doctor Hu Yuan, 80, runs one of the few remaining refuges
for abandoned pets in her ramshackle home in the ancient Long Tou
Jing area of Beijing.
She shares her tiny home with 250 abandoned cats and has taken in
70 over the past 12 months alone.
She pays for neutering and food from her pension and donations. She
said: "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."
She said 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.
It is all connected to the Olympics."
Cats are regularly dumped on her doorstep late at night by owners
frightened by the government campaign.
"The situation is very bad now," said Ms Hu. "When women get
pregnant, the doctor will ask them if they have a cat in the
house.
"If they reply Yes, they tell them, 'You must get rid of it, it
will be bad for the baby'.
"I keep all the cats in my house and 100 of them sleep in my
bedroom at night. I am too frightened to let them out. If they go
outside, they will be taken away and killed.
"The government is not telling people the truth. Look at me. I live
with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week and I am very
healthy."
The round-up has been particularly intense in areas around Olympic
venues and in streets and alleys surrounding five-star hotels where
guests will stay during the summer games.
Despite the health warnings, the round-up of cats has led to a
surge in the number of restaurants in the capital serving cat meat,
according to Ms Hu.
She said hundreds of cats were also being sent to Guangzhou in
southern China, an area infamous for restaurants that serve meat
from cats and dogs and exotic animals such as snakes and
tigers.
It was in July last year that district officials were instructed to
begin an intense round-up of cats as part of Beijing's pre-Olympics
clean-up. Now notices have been put up urging residents to hand in
cats.
Welfare groups estimate that tens of thousands have been collected
in the past few months.
The Mail on Sunday went to the cat pound in Shahe on the
north-western fringes of Beijing but we were repeatedly refused
admission.
"No one can come in without official papers," staff shouted from
behind padlocked steel gates.
At another, larger compound in Da Niu Fang village, the sound of
cats wailing could be clearly heard coming from a cluster of
tin-roofed sheds, but workers denied they were holding any
cats.
"There are no cats here, go away. No one is allowed inside unless
you have official permission," a security guard said.
The killing of the six stray cats at the kindergarten - where staff
at a Beijing cigarette factory leave their children - is the most
striking illustration of the city-wide fear of cats.
A teacher at the nursery said: "We did it out of love for the
children. We were worried the cats might harm them. These six cats
had been hanging around the kindergarten looking for food.
"So three male teachers put out plates of tuna in cages for bait,
trapped the cats and then beat them to death with sticks.
"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."
Christie Yang of the charity Animals Asia, which liaises with the
Beijing animal welfare groups, said: "We are seriously
concerned.
"We understand that with the Olympic Games the Beijing government
is eager to show the world the city in a good light.
"But capturing and dealing with cats in such an inhumane way will
seriously tarnish the image of Beijing and the Games."
• Names of the animal campaigners have been changed as the people
we interviewed are concerned about officials' reaction to our
story.