From Wall Street Journal:
Animal-welfare advocates complained about a campaign in which a local government has killed 37,000 dogs to fight a rabies outbreak, highlighting a divide in attitudes toward animals as China grows wealthier.
The city of Hanzhong, in China’s central Shaanxi province, has ordered the killing of all dogs found outside homes in areas hit hardest by the outbreak. Authorities have ordered “dog-beating teams” to canvass the area and beat dogs to death on the spot — including those that have been registered by their owners, said Shi Ruihua, head of the livestock department in Hanzhong’s agriculture bureau.
Rabies outbreaks are common in rural China. This year, Hanzhong saw a spike in the number of cases. Thirteen people have died there since the outbreak started in early March.
