Pigeon Racing from Dong-Shan Road Exotic Pet Shop

     How naive I was to think it quaint the pigeons that the owner of the exotic pet shop flew over his store. In the early morning, I have often seen the man, cross-legged on his flat roof, smoking cigarettes like a chimney, as three dozen pigeons flew over his head around the condo in which I live in Beitun. I didn't realize he was exercising them for the great pigeon races.
     On the Chinese language TV station and newspapers there was a report of how PETA's investigation of cruelty to animals in Taiwan was getting results. More than a million homing pigeons die every year in private Taiwan open-ocean races. They are shipped out to sea in typhoon-strength winds and forced to fly back home. Less than 1% complete the races; they either drown from exhaustion, die in the storms, or are killed afterwards for being 'too slow.' 
     The Taichung District Prosecutors Office charged 129 pigeon racers, including the president of the Fengyuan Pigeon Club, with gambling and impounded $2 million. Not long ago, 32 pigeon racers from Kaoshiung's Zhong Zheng pigeon-racing club were charged, too. 

http://www.peta.org/action/action-alerts/first-ever-taiwan-raid-police-bust-pigeon-racers/

        When I passed by the shop, I saw the cruel and unusual way animals were kept: the terrapins had no room to move, a neurotic tropical bird on a perch, mostly naked of feathers, couldn't stop bobbing its head, while two albino animals sat cooped in small cage out front even on boiling hot days.  

     While sitting on a bench, I sometimes notice turtles in the Han River sunning themselves on rocks in midstream. I didn't know they weren't natural to those waters until my wife told; they are another example of animal cruelty. Either for religious reasons (to spare an animal's life and gain points for the afterlife) or for the convenience of disposing pets who have grown too large, some people put the turtles there, a hostile environment in which most will suffer and not survive.

    Years ago, I remember seeing a large terrapin at the entrance to a day market in Taipei. The man with the terrapin was asking for donations from passers-by so he could transport the animal back to where it came. I didn't realize it was he that had taken the animal from its  natural environment in the first place. 

     Since arriving in Taichung, my wife has taken to donating to TNR (trap-neuter-return) organizations in Taiwan. In our neighborhood, there are some well-meaning folk that leave food out for local street cats without realizing they are part of the problem. These cats have kittens that suffer on the streets, get chased by stray dogs, or worse. TNR captures these cats and returns them to the street to live out their lives without procreating; you can tell which cats have been neutered by the clipped ear. 

      In addition to pet-owners who abandon the pets they no longer want to care for onto the streets, there is a practice in Taiwan of some pet-owners of making their dogs ride on running boards of their speeding scooters; it is endangering the animals that could be hurt if they, or the owner, fall off. 

     Attitudes towards cats, dogs, and other pets is improving in Taiwan. For example, where before cats were treated like pests and shunned or abused, many people who once considered getting lap dogs are now going for cats as pets. In general, there is a trend to care more for one's pets and learn how to care for them.