Box Containing Cat Corpse in Front of Hospital with Note
"Due to Difficult Circumstances, Leaving It Here"
"Please take good care so that the pretty baby can go to a good place. The child lived in Dujeong-dong, and the name is Jeongdong. Thank you. Sorry."
A post published on an online community on the 23rd has sparked outrage among netizens. What seemed like a heartbreaking story turned out to be an absurd request for 'corpse disposal.'
The situation was as follows. A cardboard box containing a cat's corpse was found in front of an animal hospital. On top of the box was a note that read, "There is a child dead in the corner where I feed them, and I wanted to bury it, but the situation is difficult, so I am leaving it like this. The child was healthy and ate well, really sad."
A 'cat mom' abandoned the corpse of a stray cat she cared for, asking the animal hospital to handle the disposal on her behalf. A cat mom refers to a person who regularly feeds stray cats without owners.
Netizens who saw this criticized the irresponsible behavior of the cat mom. They expressed that while she felt proud of taking care of the poor cat, she shifted the responsibility of corpse disposal to the hospital.
Among netizens, criticisms poured out such as, "What crime did the animal hospital director commit?", "It's so selfish to only see the cute parts and ignore the bothersome tasks," "Why give it a name if you don't raise it or even bury it?", and "If you want to take care of it, you should take it to a funeral service."
Under current law, animal corpses are classified as household waste. They must be disposed of in designated garbage bags or entrusted to animal hospitals or registered animal funeral facilities for processing. Also, when a companion animal dies, the registration must be canceled within 30 days.
Meanwhile, a public-private consultative body to discuss stray cat management issues will be launched in the first half of the year. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced improvement plans for the stray cat neutering (TNR) project on the 12th.
The Ministry plans to form a 'Stray Cat Welfare Improvement Consultative Body' (tentative name) in the first half of the year, involving animal protection organizations, veterinarians, and local governments to narrow differences on stray cat protection issues.
The Ministry has been implementing the neutering project since 2018 to control the stray cat population. Up to last year, it supported neutering surgeries for a total of about 358,000 cats.
Due to the implementation of the neutering project, the stray cat population in seven metropolitan cities excluding Sejong decreased from 273 cats per km² in 2020 to 233 cats per km² in 2022. The proportion of kitten cats also decreased from 29.7% in 2020 to 19.6% in 2022.
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