Tibetan mastiff dogs ravaging wildlife, mauling people, and spreading disease in China after collapse of pet market
- Tibetan mastiffs were once a status symbol in China, selling for up to US$2 million until the market collapsed
- Breeding centres shut, and thousands were abandoned on the Tibetan Plateau, where they are a danger to wildlife and humans
WARNING: STORY CONTAINS DISTRESSING LANGUAGE
Once a prized breed for which dog owners would pay several million yuan, the Tibetan mastiff is no longer a fashionable pet in China. Thousands of them have been abandoned to roam the Tibetan Plateau, where they spread disease and attack anything in their path.
In 2014, Yin Hang set up the Gangri Neichog (“Sacred Snowland”) Research and Conservation Centre to cater to the welfare of abandoned mastiffs and other animals on the plateau.
She had previously worked in snow leopard conservation in Qinghai province in northwest China, and says she became aware of the mastiffs’ plight after watching a video of a snow leopard being harassed by a pack of the large dogs.
“Several mastiffs surrounded the leopard, trying to get the blue sheep it had just killed,” she says, referring to a wild, goat-like mammal that makes up most of the leopard’s diet. “The leopard eventually gave up the sheep and left. Such things happen near monasteries a lot. The stray mastiffs have an adverse impact on the ecological food chain and endangered animals.”
Descendants of dogs bred for shepherding and hunting by nomadic tribes in Central Asia and Tibet, mastiffs are large, fiercely loyal and ferocious.
