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Doggone it: Disney under fire in Hong Kong
Animal welfare groups pulled up Disney for having stray dogs on its park site killed.
Disney came under fire from animal welfare groups Monday for having stray dogs on its Hong Kong theme park site rounded up and killed.
Around 40 dogs, some of which were used as unofficial guard dogs by construction workers, are believed to have been given lethal injections after being caught by government dog catchers.
Disney called in dog catchers to clear the site of dogs in the run-up to the opening of the $3 billion theme park in September.
It denies the dogs were used as guard dogs and says they were strays that wandered onto the theme park site during construction work. They were prowling in packs, a spokeswoman said.
However, Hong Kong Dog Rescue, which found homes for three of the 45 dogs rounded up, said Disney should have made more effort to find homes for the dogs.
In a letter to Monday's South China Morning Post newspaper, the group's founder Sally Andersen said dogs from the Disney site had been turning up in government kennels at "an alarming rate".
"These dogs are friendly and healthy, as they have been fed and cared for by the site workers, but as building work is completed the dogs are simply abandoned and end up in government kennels where they are destroyed," she wrote.
If dogs are unlicensed and not microchipped in Hong Kong, they are usually destroyed within four days in government kennels.
Hong Kong Dog Rescue said Disney made no attempt to contact it before the round-up and said if it had, it could possibly have found more homes for the strays.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the use of dogs for security purposes on Hong Kong construction sites was widespread. Dogs would be fed and cared for by workers but then abandoned when the projects were finished.
A Disney spokeswoman, said: "At no time has Hong Kong Disneyland or any of its contractors kept the stray dogs at the construction site for guarding or any other purposes.
"However, there have been a number of stray dogs that have wandered onto the site during the process of construction and we have called (dog catchers) to collect them.
"They moved around in packs and, because of this, it was felt that they posed a safety risk to our casts and construction workers."
