Cruelty to squirrel spurs call to boost animal protection
By Li Qian |
March 8, 2013, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
NETIZENS call for better laws to protect wild animals and penalize animal cruelty after a squirrel was fatally knocked off a tree and trampled by a man at West Lake, a scenic spot in Hangzhou.
The incident occurred at around 4:10pm on Tuesday, when an out-of-towner rushed over to a camphor tree, knocked a squirrel down and stepped on its tail, according to a witness surnamed Yao, who was working on a pleasure boat touring the lake.
Yao said the squirrel was stunned and twitched on the ground, but the middle-aged man didn't let it go and stepped on its tail as the animal made shrill sounds, the local Youth Times newspaper reported yesterday.
The squirrel struggled to jump back on the tree after the man lifted his foot, but fell down and died due to its injuries. The man and a woman with him laughed and left, she added.
Yao, with tears in her eyes, said of the squirrels, "I have worked here for almost one year. I see them jumping so happily every day. If I had stopped him, the squirrel might not have died."
She said the man set a bad example because some little children imitated him and threw stones at the dead squirrel until their parents stopped them.
Some wild squirrels have lost their fear of people at West Lake, but few appeared after the incident, the paper reported.
Tens of thousands of netizens reposted Yao's account after she uploaded a picture of the dead squirrel on Weibo.
Some expressed outrage that somebody could do something so cruel, and called for a manhunt. "Is him crazy? Sometimes, it is the human rather than animals that should die," a netizen said.
An official with local administration surnamed Jiang said no department is assigned to take care of wild squirrels that gather at the scenic spot, the paper reported.
Anyone who hunts wildlife can be fined 500 yuan (US$80.40) to 2,000 yuan, according to rules at West Lake designed mainly to prevent harm to protected animals. But the rules don't refer to animal abuse.
Effective animal welfare laws are lacking nationally, but there are laws to protect endangered species.
The incident occurred at around 4:10pm on Tuesday, when an out-of-towner rushed over to a camphor tree, knocked a squirrel down and stepped on its tail, according to a witness surnamed Yao, who was working on a pleasure boat touring the lake.
Yao said the squirrel was stunned and twitched on the ground, but the middle-aged man didn't let it go and stepped on its tail as the animal made shrill sounds, the local Youth Times newspaper reported yesterday.
The squirrel struggled to jump back on the tree after the man lifted his foot, but fell down and died due to its injuries. The man and a woman with him laughed and left, she added.
Yao, with tears in her eyes, said of the squirrels, "I have worked here for almost one year. I see them jumping so happily every day. If I had stopped him, the squirrel might not have died."
She said the man set a bad example because some little children imitated him and threw stones at the dead squirrel until their parents stopped them.
Some wild squirrels have lost their fear of people at West Lake, but few appeared after the incident, the paper reported.
Tens of thousands of netizens reposted Yao's account after she uploaded a picture of the dead squirrel on Weibo.
Some expressed outrage that somebody could do something so cruel, and called for a manhunt. "Is him crazy? Sometimes, it is the human rather than animals that should die," a netizen said.
An official with local administration surnamed Jiang said no department is assigned to take care of wild squirrels that gather at the scenic spot, the paper reported.
Anyone who hunts wildlife can be fined 500 yuan (US$80.40) to 2,000 yuan, according to rules at West Lake designed mainly to prevent harm to protected animals. But the rules don't refer to animal abuse.
Effective animal welfare laws are lacking nationally, but there are laws to protect endangered species.
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