Hong Kong animal shelter applications may be front for other uses, NGO warns
- Liber Research Community study finds 31 of 60 successful applications involve animal shelters that may only exist on paper
A Hong Kong NGO has found that more than half of sites approved for use as temporary animal shelters may not be operational, raising concerns that the application process is being abused to carve out land for industrial and logistical purposes.
Examination of satellite images and site visits by the Liber Research Community suggested that 31 of 60 successful applications over the past five years involved shelters that only existed on paper.
The NGO, which focuses on land and development research, said it had found no trace of the flagged shelters online or any sign site operators had bought food needed to care for animals.
The group added that it feared the application process was potentially being abused to carve out plots of land for use as brownfield sites and warehouses.
“We discovered that about 80 per cent of the 60 successful applications were in agricultural areas, and 31 of the sites were suspected to be non-operational,” Brian Wong Shiu-hung, a researcher with the NGO, said on Monday.
He noted that one of the suspicious sites, in Sha Tau Kok, was believed to have been used for a warehouse after an application for an animal shelter was approved.
