South Korea is planning a cull of cats and dogs to try to prevent the spread of bird flu after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus at a chicken farm last week, officials said yesterday.

Animal health experts, however, suggested it was "a bit of an extreme measure" when there was no definitive scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans.

Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a 500-metre radius of the outbreak site in Iksan, about 250 kilometres south of Seoul, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Officials began slaughtering poultry on Sunday, a day after they confirmed that the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 strain.

They plan to slaughter a total of 236,000 poultry, as well as an unspecified number of other animals, including pigs, and all dogs and cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said. About 6 million eggs will also be destroyed, it said.

Slaughtering cats and dogs near an area infected with bird flu is highly unusual in Asia. Indonesia has killed pigs in the past, but most countries concentrate solely on destroying poultry.

However, it would not be the first time for South Korea to kill cats and dogs due to bird flu concerns. An official at the Agriculture Ministry said South Korea had slaughtered cats and dogs along with 5.3 million birds during the last known outbreak of bird flu in 2003. The official declined to be named, saying he was not authorized to talk to media.

Dogs are slaughtered for consumption in South Korea, where many people enjoy dog meat as a delicacy. South Koreans slaughter dogs that are specially bred for eating, rather than as pets.

Another ministry official, Kim Chang-sup, insisted killing cats and dogs to curtail the spread of bird flu was not an unusual practice.

"Other countries do it. They just don't talk about it," Kim said, adding that all mammals are potentially subject to the virus and that South Korea is just trying to take all possible precautionary measures. He declined to comment further.

But animal experts disputed the validity in culling cats and dogs.

"It's highly unusual, and it's not a science-based decision," said Peter Roeder, an animal health expert with the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization.

(China Daily 11/28/2006 page7)