Want China Times, CNA 2015-08-30
As people around Taiwan were making offerings to wandering spirits on Ghost Festival on Friday, the New Taipei Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office and nine animal shelters in the city jointly held a Daoist religious service for wandering animal spirits.
Two puppies at the New Taipei City Animal Health Department. (File photo/ New Taipei City Animal Health Department) |
As people around Taiwan were making offerings to wandering spirits on Ghost Festival on Friday, the New Taipei Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office and nine animal shelters in the city jointly held a Daoist religious service for wandering animal spirits.
A
spokesperson for the office said that by holding the service for animal
spirits, it was hoped that the deceased animals might have better next lives
and wander no more while the animals now staying at the shelters would be
blessed with good health.
Many people
in Taiwan still follow the customs of offering food, drinks and flowers and
burning paper money to wandering ghosts and spirits on the 15th day of the
seventh moon in lunar calendar, to please the dead and pray to keep illness and
misfortune at bay.
The animal
protection office also launched a web page for people to write messages in
memory of their animal friends, giving people another way to remember their
deceased pets on the festival.
Before the
New Taipei government put in force a no-euthanasia policy on March 1, stray
dogs and cats caught by the authorities and kept in animal shelters faced death
unless they were adopted within a certain period because of overcrowding in the
shelters.
The policy
to treat animals better has actually paid dividends, New Taipei officials said,
with the natural death rate of animals kept in the shelters at 9.91% this year,
down from 20.34% during the same period a year ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment