Unfortunately, another whale has had to die and a government department has failed in a relatively simple rescue mission. It is about time the agriculture department prepared for such emergencies as sooner or later another whale will be stranded on a Hong Kong beach.

What this incident really shows is Hong Kong's lack of respect for marine life, and this is only too apparent when you walk around the seafood restaurants of Sai Kung (and many other places). Marine animals suffer in overcrowded tanks, often half dead while waiting to be butchered alive. I find it barbaric and sickening. John Phelan, Lamma Island

Q Should public tenants be allowed to keep pets?

As expatriates who have spent only the past three years in Hong Kong, we have not seen the best this place has to offer. But we have had no problem weathering the economic downturn, companies sending our friends home, the Sars virus hysteria, and now the Immigration Department's rule barring dependants from working.

However, we will simply not stay silent on the issue of the animals which are about to be slaughtered to enforce public housing legislation. For many people, their pets are considered to be part of the family.

What kind of human being would take away a lonely pensioner's only friend - be it a bird or a German shepherd? Let us rephrase the question: what kind of government believes that it has the moral authority to do so? What's more, animals are good for the mental health of lonely and mentally ill people.

The collateral damage of this policy could be a rise in the suicide rate - and I'm sure the government doesn't want blood on its hands. It is the government's own fault that it has failed to enforce this legislation in the past.

Animals have lifetimes and at the very least, those animals in public housing illegally must be allowed to live out the natural terms of their lives. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty against Animals has said it has the resources to look after only 5 per cent of the animals that will otherwise be turned out on the street.

The rest will become either corpses or a public health and safety risk. Another Talkback correspondent proposed splitting public housing into animal friendly and animal unfriendly developments. What a good idea! I do not think Hong Kong will look good to animal-friendly countries like Australia and America (where we are spending a lot of money to improve our image) if this inhumane travesty is allowed. Melanie and Fergus Brooks,

Happy Valley

I think the government is missing the point here. There are a lot of very responsible, caring pet owners in Hong Kong. Whether it is the reduced stress levels, the company for people living alone (old or young), or the healthy activity and social interaction involved in their care, Hong Kong people benefit from having pets.

Hong Kong officials would do well to note that its economy also benefits from widespread pet ownership: veterinary clinics, pet grooming and pet supplies shops provide a significant number of jobs in the current depressed economic environment.

Rather than take a heavy-handed, blanket approach to control of pets by banning them from public housing, the government should take a more enlightened approach appropriate to Asia's 'World City'. By all means, register pets, control immunisation, and penalise the minority of pet owners in public housing and elsewhere who are irresponsible and antisocial, but please leave the rest in peace.

It is sad that this debate reflects the general attitude of Hong Kong's bureaucracies. Public parks and urban leisure areas are banned to dogs. Why is this the case in Hong Kong but not in other great 'world cities' (which Hong Kong so fervently aspires to be regarded as)?

Frequently, these 'public' facilities are empty and unused, yet many people would get great enjoyment from having access with their animals to areas which are safe and free of traffic. It seems that there is a slavish following of archaic and irrelevant rules hardly appropriate in a modern 21st century society.

To the Leisure and Cultural Services Department in particular, please rethink your approach to this whole area. Relax the restrictions on urban leisure areas, provide the facilities for people to clean up and dispose of any mess, and tell your officials that so long as people control their pets and clean up after them, they should be left alone. Paul Gardiner, Happy Valley

The unmistakable consequence of this ban would mean only one thing: abandonment of hundreds of thousands of animals - stray dogs and cats, all sent to SPCA and other animal shelters waiting for the gas chamber. They would predictably outnumber the adopters. The once-loving members of many families, massacred.

What's next? Chopping all trees? Killing all first-borns? This matter should be taken seriously.

Until the government agrees to withdraw this law in its entirety, it will have a war on its hands. Peggy Yang, Wan Chai