About Faith for Animals (FFA)
Established on Jan. 30th, 2016, the team of Faith for Animals (FFA) has been working on TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) since 2007, when we were still working in Love Live Society, a student organization in National Taiwan University (NTU).
Starting from animal population control via TNR approach in NTU campus, we have applied it in the cities in Northern Taiwan, developed our own strategy, to effectively reduce the stray animal population, and been increasing approach efficiency from every campaign we work on.
Starting from animal population control via TNR approach in NTU campus, we have applied it in the cities in Northern Taiwan, developed our own strategy, to effectively reduce the stray animal population, and been increasing approach efficiency from every campaign we work on.
A Quick Glance at FFA
Stray Animals in Taiwan - After the Local Movie <Twelve Nights>
Enlightenment in the Dark Ages of Stray Dogs
Since 1951, Taiwan has been using the “catch and execute” method to take care of stary animals. After decades of time and money and numerous lives being taken, the stray animal issue are still there.
Note: More than one million stray animals (recorded) were dead or killed in the shelters only in 1999-2015.
At the meantime, National Taiwan University were using the same method to get rid of stray dogs/cats on campus. They hired students to catch the animals and submit to public shelter for execution. The shade of hostility and darkness in a young, promising environment – it was not acceptable to students who knew the situation.
In 2007, a few students took the position of dogcatchers and suggested to use TNR instead of catch-and-execute. It got the approval from the admin. After a year of trial, the neutered, stable stray animals took over the old situation of reproducing populations. From the significant improvement, people had much less complaints towards the stray animals on campus and directly changed the management methods. These pioneer students included the later launched Love Live Society (LLS) special mission members. Nine years later, FFA were founded as well.
Note: TNR: Trap, Neuter, Return. TNvR: in 2013 there were hydrophobia appearing in Taiwan, so the factor of vaccination was included.
After the situation was under control in the university, LLS started to assist the outside world. It was very challenging when it came to the streets: the post-TNR animals were still caught. TNR was not admitted by the government. If a TNR dog was caught into the shelter, the volunteers could only take a detour to adopt the dog and chip them; and if they were returned to the street, it was considered to be abandoned and the volunteers would be fined. The infinite vicious cycle greatly consumed the passion and energy of our volunteers. There was no common understanding in the society and no solution could be reached.
In the lengthy Dark Ages of stray animals, if anyone wanted to speak for those poor, minor animals, there were a few events going on. However, with all these small sparks it could be very difficult to sustain the flame of life. We need the propelling east wind to start the wild fire.
In late 2013, the movie “Twelve Nights” was on. It depicted the tragic reality of stray animals lasting just 12 nights of life if no one adopted them from Zhanghua Yuanlin Shelter. The after-effect was much greater than the Animal Welfare society in Taiwan. The 9-in-1 election in 2014, many candidates, for the first time ever, raised policies such as TNvR for animal welfare promotion. In early 2015, the Legislation Yuan rapidly passed the Zero Kill law of public shelters.
At that time, we got the phone call from the Dept. of Animal Welfare. “The Zero Kill law will take place in two years, officially. We need help from everyone to conduct TNvR.”
The East Wind is coming.
From Catch-and-Execute to Zero Kill
During the years of Catch-and-execute, most of the areas were utilizing the “report then catch” policy. The official dogcatchers would go forward to the reported area even with anonymous caller or no proper reasons. This was a very rough procedure. Without proper identification or ration, the catchers usually took the easy-caught animals on site, such as random house pets who accidentally got trapped. The problem was not resolved. The handling was poor. The innocent animals were killed. The tax money was used in the incompetent system. This had been a total loss.
Note: there were some regions, such as Reifung shelter in New Taipei City, the procedure of random catching still took place in 2013.
At that time, the government use euthanasia to control the animal population for the shelters. There were no analysis done on how to eliminate the root causes, the adoption system, care-taking…etc. The society believed in “no stray animals on the streets,” every street animal was pending to be killed eventually. Their names were written in the Death Note right after being born.
The timely “Zero Kill” sounded awesome, but it is not practical without proper follow-up works. There are a lot of stray animals in Taiwan. If no reduction was done, no change of the report-then-catch procedures, abandoning, and many other negative petting activities, Zero Kill can only cause more issues with shelters and make more animals suffer. We were worrying a lot about the situation.
However, the huge lock-out system had been slowly re-opened:
First, the numbers change massively. According to the Council of Agriculture, in 2008 there were more than 80,000 animals euthanized (~70% of the total sheltered animals) and more than 90,000 in 2009 (~70%). However, the adoption rate was only 13.7%!!!
After the 2013 Twelve Nights Effect, the adoption rate finally increased – even up to 82.5% while the euthanasia rate was 1.7% in 2017!
Since 1951, Taiwan has been using the “catch and execute” method to take care of stary animals. After decades of time and money and numerous lives being taken, the stray animal issue are still there.
Note: More than one million stray animals (recorded) were dead or killed in the shelters only in 1999-2015.
At the meantime, National Taiwan University were using the same method to get rid of stray dogs/cats on campus. They hired students to catch the animals and submit to public shelter for execution. The shade of hostility and darkness in a young, promising environment – it was not acceptable to students who knew the situation.
In 2007, a few students took the position of dogcatchers and suggested to use TNR instead of catch-and-execute. It got the approval from the admin. After a year of trial, the neutered, stable stray animals took over the old situation of reproducing populations. From the significant improvement, people had much less complaints towards the stray animals on campus and directly changed the management methods. These pioneer students included the later launched Love Live Society (LLS) special mission members. Nine years later, FFA were founded as well.
Note: TNR: Trap, Neuter, Return. TNvR: in 2013 there were hydrophobia appearing in Taiwan, so the factor of vaccination was included.
After the situation was under control in the university, LLS started to assist the outside world. It was very challenging when it came to the streets: the post-TNR animals were still caught. TNR was not admitted by the government. If a TNR dog was caught into the shelter, the volunteers could only take a detour to adopt the dog and chip them; and if they were returned to the street, it was considered to be abandoned and the volunteers would be fined. The infinite vicious cycle greatly consumed the passion and energy of our volunteers. There was no common understanding in the society and no solution could be reached.
In the lengthy Dark Ages of stray animals, if anyone wanted to speak for those poor, minor animals, there were a few events going on. However, with all these small sparks it could be very difficult to sustain the flame of life. We need the propelling east wind to start the wild fire.
In late 2013, the movie “Twelve Nights” was on. It depicted the tragic reality of stray animals lasting just 12 nights of life if no one adopted them from Zhanghua Yuanlin Shelter. The after-effect was much greater than the Animal Welfare society in Taiwan. The 9-in-1 election in 2014, many candidates, for the first time ever, raised policies such as TNvR for animal welfare promotion. In early 2015, the Legislation Yuan rapidly passed the Zero Kill law of public shelters.
At that time, we got the phone call from the Dept. of Animal Welfare. “The Zero Kill law will take place in two years, officially. We need help from everyone to conduct TNvR.”
The East Wind is coming.
From Catch-and-Execute to Zero Kill
During the years of Catch-and-execute, most of the areas were utilizing the “report then catch” policy. The official dogcatchers would go forward to the reported area even with anonymous caller or no proper reasons. This was a very rough procedure. Without proper identification or ration, the catchers usually took the easy-caught animals on site, such as random house pets who accidentally got trapped. The problem was not resolved. The handling was poor. The innocent animals were killed. The tax money was used in the incompetent system. This had been a total loss.
Note: there were some regions, such as Reifung shelter in New Taipei City, the procedure of random catching still took place in 2013.
At that time, the government use euthanasia to control the animal population for the shelters. There were no analysis done on how to eliminate the root causes, the adoption system, care-taking…etc. The society believed in “no stray animals on the streets,” every street animal was pending to be killed eventually. Their names were written in the Death Note right after being born.
The timely “Zero Kill” sounded awesome, but it is not practical without proper follow-up works. There are a lot of stray animals in Taiwan. If no reduction was done, no change of the report-then-catch procedures, abandoning, and many other negative petting activities, Zero Kill can only cause more issues with shelters and make more animals suffer. We were worrying a lot about the situation.
However, the huge lock-out system had been slowly re-opened:
First, the numbers change massively. According to the Council of Agriculture, in 2008 there were more than 80,000 animals euthanized (~70% of the total sheltered animals) and more than 90,000 in 2009 (~70%). However, the adoption rate was only 13.7%!!!
After the 2013 Twelve Nights Effect, the adoption rate finally increased – even up to 82.5% while the euthanasia rate was 1.7% in 2017!
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These numbers did not reflect the truth, however. Especially the overly high adoption rate before 2016 had to include the unknown/non-traceable ones such as those transferred from public shelters to private dog farms. Well, at least the government started to pay attention to have a better “number” – more statistic values were published online with the Council of Agriculture. The Shelter Processing Statistic was updated. Before 2014, it was only about the annual values of sheltered, euthanasia, adoption, and death-in-shelter rates; in 2015, monthly values were published. After Feb.2017, the general public could start to search for detailed information about the reason of being sheltered/released, public shelter status, etc.
Note: the official adoption rate is calculated by (adopted number/sheltered number)*100%; that is, only more than 100% adoption rate indicates the sheltered animal population was reduced. Zero Kill policy had brought a significant change – the government eventually paid attention to the root causes. The traditional catch-and-execute way maintained the responsibility of the official agencies “properly. “When they got reports, they went to catch, send the animals to shelters, and kill when the population was overload. No matter how controlled the situation was on the street or how many conflicts among people and dogs were eased, as long as they kept handling the same way they could deny any wrongdoings. Zero Kill policy had eliminated the tradition method and forced the government to think how to control the origin of the issues. Thus, the Sterilization Project suddenly became the center of discussion and was focused on HOW instead of IF. We finally initiated the collaboration with Taipei City, New Taipei City and Keelung. High Intensity Sterilization Project The methods of handling stray animal issue usually include Shelter, adoption, sterilization, enhance the owner awareness, education, legislation, euthanasia, etc. With limited resources, which should be done immediately? FFA thinks that the main reason hindering each aspect of methods is from “there are too many of them! “The most important thing at this moment is to promote the “large scale + high fraction” of High Intensity Sterilization Plan – this was also the original intention of FFA. Comparing to the TNvR terms used in the school organization years, High Intensity Sterilization Project is closer to the action of FFA. Love Live Society was originated from Taipei City. We used to be in contact with “feral dogs” mostly and TNvR was the focus. After FFA was launched, our footprints were all over Northern Taiwan with various geographic, terrain, and feeding types. We clearly understood that an overall reduction plan needs to include far more aspects. We put our attention on “groups, “assisted by “science, “and the decreasing of total population was the top priority. The key point is to make sure the sterilization could catch up with the reproduction rate, rapidly. We had seen a lot during our mission – feces filled cages, startled, abandoned dogs, even with a trusting nature…when dogs are not always easily obtainable, the troubled individuals and conflicts can be effectively avoided. The rest of the methods can be more sufficiently enhanced. This is why FFA insisted on High Intensity Sterilization Project with limited resources. Note: To learn more about the FFA evolution with their acts and the origin of stray animals in each district, please refer to “The Second Study of Stray Animal Problems.” The Present is the Key! Zero Kill brought risk and chances. We worry about how human beings were indifferent to animal lives for decades but now to expect a total reverse of situation in a few years. This attitude and the lack of experience / thought process of the government agencies will bring the policies to a wrong direction and caused more pitiful results. As mentioned before, the focus on number and turning to the other side for root cases, the similar tragedy like the 2016 Mingxioung Shelter Transferring Incident will occur again. Thus, at this significant moment, we anxiously push for the immediate solution – High Intensity Sterilization Project! Note: In 2016, there were 47 dogs dead from heat coma during the transferring from Mingxioung Shelter to private dog farms. Although there are still opposite voices towards the Twelve Nights effect about Zero Kill; although in 2017 there were still a promotion for regulation amendment from Nangtou, Jiayi, Yunlin, and Zhanghua; although there is still a long path of negotiation to walk on – FFA still anticipate that Zero Kill is a “hurricane” that brought the demolishing and reviving. |
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