A team of Beijing law experts is to spend a year investigating the problems caused by the growing number of family pets in Beijing and the abuse they're subject to in an effort to help the government draw up new laws on animal care and controls.

City lawmakers have become alarmed at the problems caused the growing number of pet owners and their animals in the Chinese capital, according to the Beijing Applied Legal Research Center.

The center, set up by the Beijing Law Society, will consider solutions to problems such as dog attacks on people, noise, pollution, infectious diseases as well as the abuse and abandonment of pets by their owners.

Some pet owners had little sense of sanitation and environmental protection often not cleaning up after their animals and letting them roam unrestrained, according to a commentary in today's Beijing Morning Post.

The number of people bitten by dogs in Beijing is rising by nearly 10,000 each year. About 70,000 people have been injured by dogs in the first half of this year, according to the paper.

And the concept of a "pet" had extended beyond cats and dogs to include snakes, spiders and scorpions which could pose a public safety risk, said commentary writer Ma Jun.

No legal grounds were available to stop people from abandoning or abusing their pets and those who cared for homeless animals could only take a limited number, said Ma.

Wang Sen, head of the research team, said: "We'll investigate these problems and suggest a pet regulation system which would be welcomed by pet owners and effective in reducing incidents.”

The center has noticed more cases of animal abuse and abandonment estimating that around 400,000 homeless cats and dogs roamed Beijing which posed a potential threat to controlling rabies.

A non-governmental pet refuge organization in Beijing received 23 abandoned cats in a single day.

"Many owners just dump their pets without consideration. Moral restraint is not enough to stop such behavior. Those people should be punished by law," said Zhang Lvping, head of the organization called "Humans and Animals".

Wang said the regulation would include penalties for abuse and abandonment. He said the team would draw up comprehensive pet management guidelines including feeding, training, vaccinating and grooming as well as managing pet products and the people in the trade.

(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2006)