Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Number of Abandoned Pets in Changsha 长沙遗弃动物的数量

I've heard from the Changsha Little Animal Protection Orgnization that there are about 100 call-in telephone requests each month from kind-hearted people who see stray dogs or cats.
This number is much more than I imagined it would be, but really it's only the number of strays that have been called in for rescue. It makes me think about how many stray dogs and cats have not been seen and reported.
If the number showing how many stray pets are on the street is 100 per month, there would be 1,200 a year, only in Changsha city! How many cities like Changsha are there in China? Let's count. There are about 260 cities like Changsha, and there are about 390 smaller cities. If we estimate the number of reports for the smaller cities as 50 rescue calls per month,
that would be:
1,200 X 260 + (50 X 12) X 390 = 312,000 + 234,000 = 546,000 rescue calls per year.
That's a lot! It means that more than five hundred thousand pets are stray each year in China.
Look at this number; what should we do?! Rescue all of the abandoned animals? We don't have the ability to do so. Instead, we should be proactive. We should encourage pet owners to have a sense of responsibility to care for pets as long as their dogs or cats are alive. This is a better way to avoid the huge number of abandoned animals.
Postscript:
Of course the number of rescue calls doesn't mean the one of strays, because sometimes several calls are from the same animal. Anyhow, this also shows a number, a big describing number for the stray pets.

中文翻译:
最近从长沙小动物保护协会得知每个月他们都会接到大概100个事关流浪猫狗的救助电话。
这远远超乎了我的想象,但这却仅仅只是有好心人看到这些流浪动物然后打来的。那还有多少没被人发现的流浪动物呢?
如果这个数字显示的是每个月有100只流浪的宠物,那么一年就有1200只。这还仅仅只是在长沙。在中国像长沙这样的城市有多少?我们算算吧。像长沙这规模的城市大概有260个,还有大约390个较小规模的城市。如果我们将小规模城市流浪动物求助电话减半,那么就是50个。
那么:
1200 x 206 +(50 12)x 390 = 312000 + 234000 = 546000 个求助电话。
多么让人惊讶的数字!意味着中国有超过54万的流浪宠物。
对于这样的数字,我们能做什么?救助所有这些遗弃动物吗?恐怕我们没有那样的精力与财力。但我们可以避免这样的事发生。我们应当让主人们意识到他们对宠物的责任,至少要在动物的有生之日得到必须的关怀。这才是减少大量遗弃动物的方法。
后记:
当然求助电话并不意味着流浪动物的数量,因为还有可能是对同一只流浪动物的多个求助电话。但至少也显示了一个数目,并且是一个惊人的数目。

2 comments:

bobtail said...

Good suggestion. But the thing is how to make this "encourage" thing efficient? Most Chinese already have a long "worry" list: medical care, education, environment, food... How to persuade them to add dog protection?

Also, "500,000 calls" doesn't mean "500,000 pets", since there is a great chance that same pet has been seen by several kind-hearted people.

Dog Protection said...

Yes, Bob is right, but the numeber can be an assumption for alerting people to pay more attention to animal protection.