“Abandoned Tibetan Mastiffs” By the Gangri Neichog Research and Conservation Centre

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a post from WeChat which was published by the account of Gangri Neichog Research and Conservation Centre on April 27, 2017.
This post introduces a new documentary by Dondrup Dorje of the Gangri Neichog (“sacred snowland”) Research and Conservation Centre that looks at the issue of abandoned Tibetan mastiffs. The film was screened and also won an award at the Shanghai International Green Film Week in August 2017. 
As covered in several media reports, the market for the once much prized Tibetan mastiff crashed heavily after 2013, leading to the abandonment of many thousands of dogs by both breeders and owners. This problem persists even today with the price of Tibetan mastiffs in steady decline and stray dogs, according to state media, presenting health and safety problems.
According to the environmental platform The Third Pole, the “Gangri Neichog Research and Conservation Centre is a grassroots organisation based in Qinghai province that focuses on conservation in Western China. Gangri Neichog adheres to the principles of respecting life and promoting sustainability by sharing the welfare brought by nature. They have worked to find a better solution to the problem of stray dogs since 2014.”
The original post on WeChat contained two videos showing short clips of the documentary film. As it was not possible to translate and subtitle the clips, instead a video subtitled in English and posted by The Third Pole for their profile of the film is included at the end of the post.
 

“Abandoned Tibetan Mastiffs”
By the Gangri Neichog Research and Conservation Centre

 
We are concerned about the following animal population who:

prey on blue sheep and other wild animals; compete with the endangered snow leopard over prey; attack school children and elderly who are praying and who spread fatal diseases…
But in the past, these animals assumed the following roles:
They guarded people’s houses; they protected livestock; they were important companions of shepherds…

How did this transformation come about?
As all kinds of problems have come to the surface, local people have adopted all kinds of measures in response…
But in implementing these measures, what are the challenges that people face?

The vision behind “Abandoned Tibetan Mastiffs”:
“We hope to make people in Tibet aware of the many problems revolving around stray Tibetan mastiffs as well as the difficult situation they are in, we want to push different local population groups to pay attention to this topic and to develop very specific and effective measures;
We hope that by exposing the conflicts and social problems revolving around stray Tibetan mastiffs, we can give the outside world an angle to understand the economic, social and living situation within Tibet;
We hope to unite local people to help solve the problem of stray Tibetan mastiffs, while respecting local religious beliefs; we hope to promote a solution that can benefit everyone, “people, wild animals and stray Tibetan mastiffs.”

This is not merely a documentary about stray Tibetan mastiffs, it is even more about people in Tibet.

 

Abandoned Tibetan mastiffs from thethirdpole on Vimeo.