Farmer fined W4m for electrocuting 25 dogs

(Herald DB)

A 64-year-old farmer in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province, has been ordered to pay a 4 million won ($2,730) fine for electrocuting 25 dogs on his farm, an appellate court ruled Wednesday.

The Jeonju District Court upheld a lower court ruling that convicted the farmer of violating the Animal Protection Act and the Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act.

According to the court, the farmer slaughtered 25 Japanese mastiffs between March and July 2023 by confining them in a cage and shocking them with high-voltage electric currents.

In July 2023, he also slaughtered a goat at the same unlicensed site. The court ruling did not specify the method used in that case.

Under the Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act, animals raised as livestock can only be slaughtered at designated facilities.

The farmer argued that he had taken over the Japanese mastiff farm in 2021 and used slaughter methods taught by the previous owner.

However, the Animal Protection Act states that “Animals should not be killed using violent methods,” and the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that electrocution constitutes “a violent method” of slaughter.

“The defendant’s guilt of killing 25 dogs using violent methods without confirming whether the method he learned when he acquired the farm was appropriate or lawful is not light,” Judge Hwang Ji-ae said in the ruling. “However, showing leniency this time by imposing a fine is not unfair as he recognizes the crime, feels remorse, and has changed his field of work, reducing the chance of recurrence.”