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The Government was studying the feasibility of allowing poultry owners who had been keeping poultry as pets before the enactment of the backyard poultry ban to continue rearing their pet poultry under the current legislation, a spokesman for the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau said today (February 24).
The move was made after taking into consideration poultry owners' wishes to keep their birds until the very last day of the petsˇ¦ life span.
"The proposal to issue special licences to pet poultry owners, however, was not considered as the best approach to handle the issue," the spokesman added.
But the spokesman stressed that the Government did not encourage people to keep poultry as pets because of the inherent risk of being infected by various kinds of viruses from the poultry.
"If the poultry owners really wanted to do so, they must be prepared to take a very high standard of personal hygiene for their own protection. They are also requested to do all the necessary biosecurity measures and to avoid causing disturbances to other people.
"Our past experience indicated that so far pigeons have not been infected by the H5N1 virus and therefore the Government is considering the suitability of issuing an exhibition licence, provided they were able to comply with the biosecurity requirements so as not to pose a public health risk.
"Having said that, we did not rule out the possibility of not allowing pigeons to be kept as and when there is evidence that the virus is beginning to affect pigeons," the spokesman added.
The Government was also considering the possibility of lowering the fee level of such a licence to ensure that it continued to reflect the full cost recovery principle while recognising the very special nature of this type of activity as opposed to the normal exhibition licence which is intended to cater for large scale animal exhibition and performance.
Turning to the Heung Yee Kuk's decision to file a judicial review against the backyard poultry ban, the spokesman reiterated that the measure did not constitute deprivation of property.
"With the threat of avian influenza becoming more imminent recently, it is crucial for the authorities to enact emergency legislative amendments to ban backyard poultry as soon as practicable.
"Moreover, should the Government decide to offer compensation, backyard poultry keepers might postpone the disposal of their poultry until payment was made. This would go against our objective of banning backyard poultry as soon as possible," the spokesman explained.
The spokesman stressed that in event of an avian influenza outbreak, it would not only jeopardise public health but also deal a severe blow to the economy. In the event of an avian influenza outbreak in Hong Kong, the economic growth would shrink by more than half, as projected by the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australian National University, which made the estimate with reference to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).
Ends/Friday, February 24, 2006
Issued at HKT 18:48
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