A.I.R. 宜蘭拯救動物Animals Ilan Rescue

A.I.R.
宜蘭拯救動物
Animals Ilan Rescue

Welcome > Background

Background

Although many people in Taiwan love and cherish their pets, many others here see nothing wrong with abandoning ("freeing!") unwanted animals and unwanted litters; this plus the fact that the majority of pets here are never spayed or neutered, means that there is a large and visible stray animal problem in this country.

Those who have grown up in Taiwan may be used to the numbers of strays they meet each day; many kind-hearted people are saddened by this state of affairs and wish they could help, but the problem seems too huge and too overwhelming. Most people here are forced to ignore the strays they see, because they can't bring the the animals home and don't know what else to do. Some kind souls who do try to help have been known to wind up with even 20 or 50 or 100 animals to care for.

In some countries, it's actually normal to take in any stray animal you find; finding an ownerless dog or cat in such places is an exceedingly rare event, and if you do find one you take it home or to the vet because you assume it's lost and that the owner is desperate to have it returned.

It's not that no animals are abandoned in these places; it's just that these places are so big that the abandoned ones disappear and most people never lay eyes on them. In these places, many people grow up without ever once coming across a stray. Never meeting a single stray animal and then coming to Taiwan and meeting strays every day can be emotionally wrenching for some. Many people who are new to Taiwan are shocked to find out that nobody is looking for these animals and that nobody wants them.

A.I.R. is made up of people, from Taiwan and from other countries, who are dedicated to finding ways to help the animals of Yilan County. We have a hard time ignoring animals in need; we also understand that we can't bring them all home. We believe we can change the current situation with education and a healthy dose of CNR.

The 2003 study on Taiwan strays, "Dog Keeping in Taiwan: it's Contribution to the Problem of Free-Roaming Dogs," by Yuying Hsu, Lucia Liu Severinghaus, and James A. Serpell, states that "Taiwan's dramatic and recent transition from a prominently rural to a predominantly urban industrial society has created a situation in which relatively detached rural attitudes toward dogs suddenly have been translocated to urban settings in which they are no longer appropriate."

For more information on the background to the present day stray animal problem in Taiwan, please read the interesting and informative above-quoted study at
http://www.animalstaiwan.org/items/taiwan_strays.pdf

A 2000 write-up on the background to the problem of strays in Taiwan is also helpful for understading the situation here. View this article at
http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/site/Tr/fp.asp?xItem=517&CtNode=128

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