Letters | Hong Kong’s hamster cull: how can the government say it had ‘no choice’?

A more considered approach is needed to protect animal rights and prevent feeding public fear, which may lead to panicked pet dumping
The decisiveness shown in this instance, however, could be useful in tackling the illegal wildlife trade, reducing stocking densities in pet warehouses and improving slaughterhouse conditions

Coronavirus Hong Kong

Letters

Published: 7:30am, 22 Jan 2022

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Further to my letter on the ill-executed wild boar bait-and-cull policy (“Wild boar cull a total public relations failure”, January 3), I am shocked by the Hong Kong government’s decision to euthanise more than 2,000 hamsters, chinchillas and rabbits.

On the one hand, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) admitted that there is no literature in the world showing that pets can transmit Covid-19 to humans, but on the other, it said it had been left with “no choice” but to cull the animals out of an abundance of caution, citing the precedent of Denmark’s mink cull.

There are several options available to the government, such as lining up sufficient quarantine facilities and ramping up testing capabilities – especially if it wants to pursue a zero-Covid policy – culling only animals in the affected consignments but not those at home (if necessary, imposing a home quarantine), and conducting an evidence-based risk analysis.

I don’t think the AFCD was left with no choice. But the small animals which were culled, surrendered or abandoned were.

In Denmark, the culling of minks, among which there were rare cases of human-to-animal-to-human transmission of Covid-19, later proved to be without legal basis. The prime minister said the oversight happened because it was a busy time, and the agriculture minister resigned.

In Hong Kong, the Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance gives the government sweeping regulatory powers to destroy animals. I would urge the government to take a balanced and evidence-based approach when exercising this statutory power and not to act on a suspicious or theoretical possibility of animal-human transmission.

The lives of animals need to be appropriately taken into consideration as we have a moral and legal responsibility to protect them. Harsh or hasty government action could feed public fear and spark a widespread abandonment of pets or more culls of other infected or potentially infected animals.

I strongly encourage people not to abandon their pets out of panic. They are a part of our family too.

04:03

Hamster owners drop off their beloved pets following Hong Kong government’s mass-kill order

The government has shown that it can take decisive action at short notice in working closely with the AFCD and Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. There are other pressing issues in Hong Kong which require immediate action.

It would be encouraging to see swift action taken, for example, on tackling illegal wildlife imports, reducing stocking densities in pet warehouses, improving slaughterhouse conditions, modernising conservation efforts in zoos, and revamping our Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance.

Huan Huan Wong, Central