The Taiwan SPCA received a cat cruelty case reported to us which was a video posted on Facebook in May 2013. The cat was wrapped in tape and kept falling down again and again as he couldn’t get his balance. Furthermore, the owner taunted the cat with a laser pointer, the cat kept falling down as he tried to catch the laser. The video ignited netizen’s anger, but the owner’s excuse was that his cat liked being wrapped up in sticky tape and deleted the video soon after that.
TSPCA investigator contacted the Taipei City Animal Protection Office immediately after receiving the report, and expected them to take over the case as it’s clearly against the Animal Protection Act. Nevertheless, the APO stated that because no real names or other personal information was shown on Facebook, they couldn’t look into the owner’s real identity or his location from the website. Since the location of the case determines which authority (Taipei City, New Taipei City etc) takes on the case, they suggested we contact the Council of Agriculture, to find the owner’s real identity from his IP address.
Nonetheless, the authorities stated that since Facebook and Youtube are foreign websites, they are not obligated to provide the Taiwan government with the user’s info. Therefore, the only thing the authorities can do is to negotiate with the foreign website companies and inquire about whether they can provide the user’s info to assist in investigations. One month later, the TSPCA again contacted the authorities to ask about the process of inquiring about foreign website user’s info. The response we received from the Agriculture Department was that they were still in the process of negotiating and hadn’t received any assurance of cooperation yet. They said they will also contact the Criminal Intelligence Center of the Criminal Investigation Bureau to inquire about if they have any experience in cooperating with foreign websites. However as of now, we haven’t received any information from the authorities.
The TSPCA has been receiving more and more online reports of animal cruelty cases recently. Most of the cases only post videos or pictures online and don’t leave any personal information we can track hence there are many difficulties and limitations during the investigation process. Therefore, the TSPCA calls for the public to help us in our investigations. If animal cruelty is being reported through videos or pictures, on Facebook or Youtube, please write down the personal info of the person committing the act (ex: about me on Facebook) and try to find their real identity (location, address, email, phone, place of work etc). Please take screen shots of the pictures and backup the videos and relevant info before the post gets deleted and before reporting to the TSPCA or local authorities. The more information the better, this will make it much easier for the TSPCA or other animal protection offices to locate the offender and will also shorten the time it takes to rescue the animal.
Animal Protection Act:
Article 5 A pet owner shall be twenty years of age or above. As for teenagers under the age of twenty years raising animals, their legal representative or legal guardian shall be the pet owner.
The pet owner is obligated to provide the animal he or she keeps with the following:
1. Adequate food, water and sufficient room for the animal to move around
2. A safe, shaded, ventilated, illuminated, warm and clean living environment
3. Necessary prevention and cure of statutory animal infectious diseases
4. Protection against vicious or unjustified disturbance, maltreatment or harm
5. Other appropriate care
Pet owners shall not abandon animals they keep, but may send the animals to animal shelters or places designated by the municipal or county (city) competent authority.
