By Kim Bo-eun
Seoul City opened a link Friday to provide information to the public on pet abuse and share information on how to treat animals, in an effort to enhance animal welfare.
By typing the word “animal” into the search engine of the city’s main website at https://www.seoul.go.kr, information on animals such as animal protection policies, the pet registration system, reporting lost animals and neutering of stray dogs and cats can be accessed.
“The numbers of abandoned pets and animal abuse cases is increasing every year,” said a city official. “We hope that through the animal protection section on the city’s website, we will be able to communicate with citizens and share information on animal protection policies. This will ultimately contribute to enhancing animal welfare.”
More and more families are getting pets and at the same time there have been more abandoned pets and animal-related civil complaints. The website is bound to provide a useful platform on these issues.
There are some 1 million domestic pets in Seoul (some 390,000 dogs and 170,000 cats), which means approximately one out of five households has a pet.
The city plans to expand services to include that of disease control, hygiene management and potty training.
It is the latest in a series of measures the city government has taken to protect animals’ rights.
In May, the city decided to free a dolphin from the Seoul Zoo and indefinitely suspend its dolphin show, as civic groups called for measures to address animal rights issues such as the illegal capturing of endangered species and animal abuse.
“It is not only a matter of one dolphin going home, but a matter of the relationship between animals and humans, between nature and humans,” the activist-turned-Mayor Park Won-soon said.
The 13-year-old dolphin named Jedol is to be freed in the seas off Jeju, after being trained to adapt to the wild. It will be moved to the adjustment facility in March next year and is set to be released in 2014.
The dolphin show has been replaced by an educational program about dolphin ecology.