Stray Animal Culture in Taiwan

30-Second Overview

On the streets of Taiwan, you encounter a particular kind of presence. Some of them wear ear tags, some wag their tails behind the auntie at the breakfast shop, some lie sprawled on the steps of a temple courtyard — like the most ancient residents this island has known.

On February 6, 2017, Taiwan became the second country in Asia and the first in East Asia to implement a "zero euthanasia" policy. But this path did not begin out of kindness — it began because of a documentary that made an entire island weep.

Key figures:

• Estimated 155,000 stray dogs nationwide (Council of Agriculture 2022 survey)
• Full implementation of zero euthanasia since 2017
• 32 public animal shelters nationwide
• Registered pet dogs and cats exceeding 3 million
• Shelter adoption rates rising from 16% in 2012 to approximately 80% or above in recent years

Why This Matters

Taiwan's stray animal story is a mirror.

It reflects a society's journey from the indifference of "out of sight, out of mind" to the awakening of "their lives matter too." This process was not driven by the government, but by a film, a community of volunteers, and wave upon wave of social media movements. It illustrates something important about Taiwanese society: when citizens decide to care, institutions are compelled to follow.

For outside observers, this is also a window into Taiwanese social values — how a country treats the lives that have no voice often reveals how it treats all marginalized existence.

Twelve Nights: One Film Changes a Nation

The Countdown in the Shelter

Before 2013, Taiwan's public animal shelters operated under a cruel but "legal" system: stray animals caught and brought to the shelter would be euthanized if no one claimed or adopted them within twelve days.

It was not only the sick who would die. Those that no one wanted would die.

Every year, tens of thousands of healthy dogs and cats reached the end of this twelve-day countdown. Shelter workers cared for the animals and then executed them — many eventually broke down themselves. Some veterinarians left the job because they could not bear the psychological pressure of daily euthanasia; some developed post-traumatic stress disorder.

Giddens Ko's Gamble

On November 29, 2013, a documentary was released.

Twelve Nights was directed by Raye (Huang Hsin-sheng) and produced and funded by the popular author Giddens Ko (九把刀). Giddens Ko was not an animal welfare activist — he was a bestselling author who wrote about assassins, love stories, and those years of youth. But he owned a dog he had rescued from a shelter. He said: "I cannot pretend not to know."

The film had no narration, no lecturing. The camera was simply placed inside the shelter, silently recording the dogs' twelve days.

They arrived wagging their tails, as if expecting someone to take them home.
By day three, they had stopped eating.
By day seven, their eyes had changed.
By day twelve, many viewers could no longer see the screen through their tears.

Twelve Nights grossed more than NT$50 million — an astronomical sum for a documentary. More importantly, it transformed "shelter euthanasia" from an animal welfare community issue into a nationwide outrage.

From Tears to Law

In January 2015, the Legislative Yuan passed amendments to the Animal Protection Act, explicitly providing:

Public animal shelters shall cease administering euthanasia to sheltered animals, with a two-year transition period.

On February 6, 2017, "zero euthanasia" formally came into effect.

One film. Two years of advocacy. One law. Taiwanese stray animal history was divided into "before Twelve Nights" and "after Twelve Nights."

After Zero Euthanasia: Where the Problems Really Begin

The Real Weight of a Beautiful Commitment

The spirit of the zero euthanasia policy was moving, but reality quickly bared its teeth.

No more euthanasia means animals can only enter shelters, not leave — except through adoption. But not every dog is "cute enough" to be adopted. Those who are too old, too large, too aggressive, or not appealing enough stay in the shelter permanently.

Overcrowding was the first problem. Taiwan's 32 public animal shelters were already short on space by many accounts. After zero euthanasia took effect, some shelters held two to three times their designated capacity. Cages packed with too many dogs led to fighting, contagious disease, and stress behaviors spreading rapidly.

People began asking: "Is letting them live and suffer really more humane than euthanasia?"

This question has no standard answer. But it forced Taiwanese society to confront a deeper issue — whether we have the capacity to pay for our own good intentions.

The Invisible Wounds of Shelter Workers

Rarely noticed is the fact that shelter workers are the people bearing the greatest burden in this entire system.

Before zero euthanasia, they were forced to carry out euthanasia and were called "executioners." After zero euthanasia, they had to care for ever-growing numbers of animals in overcrowded conditions and were called out for "not taking proper care of them." Whatever the policy, those on the front line were always condemned from both sides.

In 2016, Chien Chih-cheng, a veterinarian at the Taoyuan City Sinwu Animal Protection Education Park, chose to end her own life after enduring prolonged psychological pressure from performing euthanasia and the external blame she received. The drug she used was the same one she routinely used to euthanize animals.

This shook Taiwanese society. People suddenly realized that while debating animals' rights, no one had truly cared about the mental health of those doing the work.

TNR: Another Path

The Notched Ear

If you see a dog or cat on the streets of Taiwan with a small notch cut from one ear — that is not an injury; it is a story.

That notch is the mark of TNR: Trap, Neuter, Return. Stray animals are caught, neutered, ear-notched as a mark, and then returned to where they came from.

The logic is simple: you cannot kill them all, so let them stop reproducing. After one generation, two, three, numbers naturally decline.

Taiwan's TNR was first promoted spontaneously by private animal welfare groups, operating in a legal grey zone. After the 2015 amendments to the Animal Protection Act, TNR was officially incorporated as a policy tool. County and city governments began allocating budgets and cooperating with animal welfare groups to carry out large-scale TNR programs.

The Unwritten Rules of Community Animals

TNR is not only surgery. Behind it is an entire system of community ecological management.

In many of Taiwan's communities there are what are called "feeders" (餵養人) — residents who regularly feed stray animals. They place food out at fixed times and fixed locations every day. Between these feeders and the volunteers who do TNR, there is an informal but long-running cooperative system:

• The feeder observes; when a new face appears, they report it
• Volunteers bring a live trap to catch it and send it for neutering
• After neutering, the animal is returned; the feeder continues caring for it
• If one is suitable for adoption, they take a photo and post it online to find a home

This system has no official documentation, yet it operates quietly in countless communities across Taiwan. Its driving force is not law — it is the auntie's inability to look away.

"Adopt, Don't Shop"

The Social Engineering Behind a Slogan

In Taiwan, the phrase "以認養代替購買" (adopt instead of purchase) has penetrated daily life at roughly the same level as "keep litter off the streets" — you may not always follow it, but you have definitely heard it.

What this phrase changed is not just consumer behavior — it is social perception. Ten years ago, owning a purebred dog was a status symbol; now, if you show off on social media that you just paid NT$80,000 for a French Bulldog, you might face enough comments to make you delete the post. Conversely, if you post a photo of a mutt you brought home from a shelter, the response is a flood of hearts and "so wonderful."

This is a social value reversal that no one initiated yet everyone participated in.

The word "米克斯" (Mix, for mixed-breed dog) is itself a product of Taiwan's animal welfare culture. It is not a technical term — it was coined by online communities to repackage "mixed breed" as something with a name, an identity, worth being remembered.

The Dilemma for Pet Stores

In 2021, Taiwan further revised the law to prohibit pet businesses from displaying and selling dogs and cats in storefronts. Walk into a pet store, and you will no longer see small animals in glass display windows. To purchase, one may only do so directly from licensed breeders.

The logic behind this law: when you see a cute puppy in a display window, what you are making is an impulse purchase. And impulse purchases are the first step toward abandonment.

School Dogs and Cats: The Most Distinctive Life Education

Taiwan has an educational practice rarely seen elsewhere in the world: letting stray animals live in school campuses.

These dogs and cats, coming from shelters or the streets, are adopted by schools and become "school dogs" or "school cats." They have their own sleeping spaces, students responsible for their care, and sometimes their own Instagram accounts.

This is not just about absorbing stray animals. It is a form of living life education.

What the children learn is not the five characters "love animals" (愛護動物) from a textbook, but:

• When it doesn't want to be touched, you cannot touch it
• When it gets sick, you take it to the vet — and vet visits cost money
• When it gets old and passes away, you have to learn to face loss

Approximately 700-plus schools across Taiwan have a school dog or school cat. The Ministry of Education even held a "Model School with Campus Dog" selection in 2019.

In an educational system that places heavy emphasis on exam scores, making space for a stray dog to teach children what "responsibility" means — that itself is very Taiwanese.

The Things Still Unsolved

Conflict Between Stray Dogs and People

After zero euthanasia, the number of stray dogs on the streets did not noticeably decrease. They are still there — they just no longer get taken away to die.

But "they are still there" has created new friction. Incidents of stray dogs chasing motorcycles, biting people, and chasing other animals continue to occur. Packs of stray dogs in mountain areas have even threatened wildlife — leopard cats, pangolins, and barking deer have all been victimized.

This has produced sharp divisions between animal welfare groups and ecologists: the people protecting stray dogs, and the people protecting wildlife, see entirely different worlds on the same mountainside.

Illegal Breeding Operations

The louder "adopt instead of purchase" is proclaimed, the deeper underground breeding operations go to hide.

Legal operators face strict regulation, but illegal breeding operations — colloquially known as "puppy mills" — still exist. There, female dogs are used as production machines, litter after litter until their bodies give out. Retired breeding dogs, if lucky, are rescued by animal welfare groups; if unlucky, they are abandoned in the mountains, becoming new stray dogs.

This is a whack-a-mole problem that policy cannot fully solve. Close one down, and another opens somewhere else.

The Structural Problem of Pet Abandonment

Although pet registration rates in Taiwan rise year on year, abandonment remains severe.

The most common reasons given for abandonment are moving house, landlords prohibiting pets, family opposition, and lack of time. But if you look closely, the common thread in all these reasons is — not thinking it through when the decision was made to get a pet.

Taiwan's rental market is extremely unfriendly to pets. Landlords prohibiting animals is almost the norm. A society that simultaneously encourages adoption and prevents pet owners from finding housing — this is itself a structural contradiction.

Remarkable Facts

• Taiwan's stray dog density is approximately 4.3 per square kilometer — more common than wildlife
• Twelve Nights grossed more than NT$50 million, making it one of the highest-grossing documentaries in Taiwan's history
• More than 100,000 TNR procedures are performed nationwide each year
• Approximately 700+ schools have a campus dog or campus cat
• After the 2016 incident involving veterinarian Chien Chih-cheng, psychological counseling resources for shelter veterinarians were formally incorporated into the system
• Taiwan is the first country in East Asia to implement a zero euthanasia policy
• Taiwan has more than 20 animal adoption platforms, from the government's "National Animal Shelter Management System" to various private LINE groups
• In 2023 statistics, the number of domestic cats in Taiwan exceeded domestic dogs for the first time — urbanization has made cats the more popular companion animal

An Island's Choice

Taiwan's stray animal story is not a story of "a problem being solved."

It is a story of "a society learning to care." From the shock of Twelve Nights, to the commitment of zero euthanasia, to the daily practice of TNR, to what a campus dog teaches children — each step is imperfect, each step carries a cost, but each step is genuine forward movement.

Those street dogs with the notch in their ear, lying in the morning sun in front of the breakfast shop — they don't know they were once the subject of policy debates, documentary films, and social media. They only know that today someone put out food, the sun is warm, and this street still remembers their name.

Further Reading

• Taiwan Animal Drug Controversy — ten years on from the zero euthanasia policy, the next problem this island must face: they get sick and there is no medicine to buy

References

• _Twelve Nights_ — Wikipedia
• Council of Agriculture Animal Protection Information Network
• Taiwan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (EAST)
• Heart of Taiwan Animal Protection Association (TNR Promotion)
• National Animal Shelter Management System (Council of Agriculture Animal Protection Information Network)